`far-famed Samothrace,' for instance." Father S--- talked much of
classical history, connecting these islands with Greek and Roman
heroes.

All this was desperately interesting to me. It was picturesque to
stand in the sand-bed of the Salt Lake, lit by the broad flood of
silver moonlight, with the little priest eagerly scratching like an
ibis in the sand with his walking-stick.

I learnt more about the Near East in those few minutes than I had ever
done at school.

But besides the interest in this novel history lesson, I was more than
delighted to find the padre so correct in his sketch of the island and
the coast, and I took down what he told me in a note-book afterwards,
and copied his sand-maps also.

After this I came to know him better than I had. I visited his dug-
out, and he let me look at his books and Punch and a month-old
Illustrated London News, or so. I came to admire him for his
simplicity and for his devotion to his men. Every Sunday he held Mass
in the trenches of the firing-line, and he never had the least fear of
going up.

A splendid little man, always cheerful, always looking after his
"flock." Praying with those who were about to give up the ghost ;
administering the last rites of the Church to those who, in awful
agony, were fluttering like singed moths at the edge of the great
flame, the Great Life-Mystery of Death.