OLD HYMNS. 99 



tion as I had some months later. I never knew a more 

 tempestuous night, for a starry one, than I had in Upper 

 Egypt, when a fierce gale carried my boat through the 

 pass at Hagar Silsilis. About nine o'clock in the even- 

 ing I was standing on deck, watching the stars and list- 

 ening to the rush of the boat through the brown Nile, 

 swinging and swaying her great sail as she dashed along. 

 Suddenly I caught on the wind the strain of an old tune, 

 and I saw that we were passing a boat which lay near 

 the shore. There were Americans on board, and the 

 very words of the hymn came clearly to my ear; or else 

 I imagined them. It was a startling interruption to the 

 wildness of the scene. My Arabs were as heedless of it 

 as of the wind. They lay on deck wrapped up in their 

 bournooses, slumbering heavily. The Nubian pilot stood 

 firm at the helm. But to me the sound was like a voice 

 out of the very sky. What I saw in the next moment's 

 imagination it would take hours to tell. We think swift- 

 ly. You spoke to me this morning of Deacon Stuart, 

 Doctor. 



Steenburger (waking from a dose). " Deacon Stuart ! 

 What — here ? I thought he was in glory forty years ago." 



Myself. " Not quite so long, as we count time in this 

 slow world. But twenty-five years ago they buried the 

 good man, then full of years, ready to go, and ripe for 

 heaven. No, he is not coming here to-night, John; but if 

 he didn't come to my Nile boat that night with his grand- 

 daughter Kate, then all I can say is that I had a powerful 

 imagination. The Doctor told me this morning that I 

 was too young to remember Katie Stuart. Old friend, I 

 had been looking into her brown eyes all the morning 

 service time — looking through forty years of storm and 

 through six feet of heavy earth. I not remember Katie! 



