Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/59



"Would you like to go to heaven, little Sunlocks?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I want to keep with—with—my fath "——

The little eyes were closed by this time, and the child was asleep on Stephen's knees. Now was the time—now—now. But no, it was harder now than ever.

The little face—so silent, so peaceful—how formidable it was! The little soft hand in his own big hard palm—how strong and terrible!

Stephen looked down at the child, and his bowels yearned over it. It cost him a struggle not to kiss it; but no, that would only make the task harder.

Suddenly a new thought smote him. What had this child done that he should take its life? Who was he that he should rob it of what he could never give it again? By what right did he dare to come between this living soul and heaven? When did the Almighty God tell what the after-life of this babe was to be? Stephen trembled at the thought. It was like a voice from the skies calling on him to stop, and a hand reaching out of them to snatch the child from his grasp.

What he had intended to do was not to be! Heaven had set its face against it! Little Sunlocks was not to die! Little Sunlocks was to live I Thank God! Oh, thank God!

But late that night a group of people standing at their doors on the beach at Port Lague saw a tall man in his shirt-sleeves go by in the darkness with a sleeping child in his arms. The man was Stephen Orry, and he was sobbing like a woman whose heart is broken. The child was little Sunlocks, and he was being carried back to his mother's home.

The people hailed Stephen, and told him that a foreigner from a ship in the bay had been asking for him that evening. They had sent the man along to Port-y-Vullin.

Stephen hurried home with fear at his heart. In five minutes he was there, and then his life's blood ran cold. He found the house empty, except for his wife, and she lay