366 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 
there should be any angels, whether my predicament does 
not remind them something of the young Hebrew they saw 
in the lion’s den, three thousand cycles ago—except that I 
am a trifle higher up than he was. But lions didn’t climb 
then. I believe they haven’t learned yet so well as panthers 
—cases mightily alike, anyhow! The angels pitied him, for 
they are said to be very compassionate; and maybe they’d 
pity me, too, if I were not such an unmitigated sinner, and 
didn’t feel ashamed to ask their pity. I have no hope in 
that direction, for I never believed in them; though it would 
be a comfort now. I have sneered like a devil about their 
“harping on their harps,” when they had never done me any 
harm—and I didn’t want their help—even if I was to be 
overtaken with a belief in them now—I don’t fancy such 
times as this for repentance and begging—don’t think ey 
would either. 
Roar away down there—that’s right! Saturnalia of the 
grizzly fiends! That’s the music for the brave Sceptic! His 
religion is to hate and to defy! Pooh! I’m getting a little 
cracked, I believe, and sleepy, too. ‘Ticklish place this, to 
dream, unless it is of hugging! Wonder what effect Mrs. 
Mab’s chariot wheels, driven athwart one’s nose, would have 
upon dreams up here? Warrant her “time out of mind coach 
makers,”’ “ joiner squirrel and old grub,” are plenty enough 
out this way. Ha! ha! to think of her “team of atomies” 
galloping across the panther’s snout. 
Plague this unruly member! I can’t keep it from prating 
about God! I'd like to know how high the Doctor roosts 
to-night? I’m afraid that it is in Abraham’s bosom! I 
wonder if he has pony with him? Pity he couldn’t have 
had a bear-steak, with honey, before he went; I think he’d 
have gone without a murmur then. But they say ‘hat 
milk and honey flow through the streets up there—no 
xccount of bears though. Sleep! “balmy sleep! tired 
