"What place is this, Jim?" said Mr. Benedict.

"This is the half-way house," responded that personage, without looking
up.

"Why, this is purgatory, isn't it?" inquired Benedict.

"Yes, Mike is a Catholic, an' all his folks; an' he's got to stay here a
good while, an' he's jest settled down an' gone to housekeepin'."

"Is it far to the gulf, now?"

"Twenty mile, and the road is rougher nor a--"

"'Ah, it's no twinty mile," responded Mike, "an' the road is jist
lovely--jist lovely; an' afore ye start I'm goin' to give ye a drap that
'll make ye think so."

They sat a whole hour before the fire, and then Mike mixed the draught
he had promised to the poor patient. It was not a heavy one, but, for
the time, it lifted the man so far out of his weakness that he could
sleep, and the moment his brain felt the stimulus, he dropped into a
slumber so profound that when the time of departure came he could not be
awakened. As there was no time to be lost, a bed was procured from a
spare chamber, with pillows; the wagon was brought to the door, and the
man was carried out as unconscious as if he were in his last slumber,
and tenderly put to bed in the wagon. Jim declined the dram that Mike
urged upon him, for he had need of all his wits, and slowly walked the
horse away on the road to his boat. If Benedict had been wide awake and
well, he could not have traveled the road safely faster than a walk; and