“They who lose at love,” said Khalil Khayyat, fingering the leaves of the big, black book, “must patiently seek some high death.” Then the people knew, beyond peradventure, that Khalil Khayyat was indeed a great poet. IX—THE REVOLUTION AT SATAN’S TRAP Jehoshaphat Rudd of Satan’s Trap was shy—able-bodied, to be sure, if a gigantic frame means anything, and mature, if a family of nine is competent evidence, but still as shy as a child. Moreover, he had the sad habit of anxiety: whence tense eyelids, an absent, poignant gaze, a perpetual pucker between the brows. His face was brown and big, framed in tawny, soft hair and beard, and spread with a delicate web of wrinkles, spun by the weather—a round countenance, simple, kindly, apathetic. The wind had inflamed the whites of his eyes and turned the rims blood red; but the wells in the midst were deep and clear and cool. Reserve, courageous and methodical diligence at the fishing, a quick, tremulous concern upon salutation—by these signs the folk of his harbor had long ago been persuaded that he was a fool; and a fool he was, according to the convention of the Newfoundland outports: a shy, dull fellow, whose interests were confined to his punt, his gear, the grounds off the Tombstone, and the bellies of his young ones. He had no part with the disputatious of Satan’s Trap: no voice, for example, in the rancorous discussions of the purposes and ways of the Lord God Almighty, believing the purposes to be wise and kind, and the ways the Lord’s own business. He was shy, anxious, and preoccupied; wherefore he was called a fool, and made no answer: for doubtless he _was_ a fool. And what did it matter? He would fare neither better nor worse. Nor would Jehoshaphat wag a tongue with the public-spirited men of Satan’s Trap: the times and the customs had no interest, no significance, for him; he was troubled with his own concerns. Old John Wull, the trader, with whom (and no other) the folk might barter their fish, personified all the abuses, as a matter of course. But— “I ’low I’m too busy t’ think,” Jehoshaphat would reply, uneasily. “I’m too busy. I—I—why, I got t’ tend my _fish!_” This was the quality of his folly. * * * * * It chanced one summer dawn, however, when the sky was flushed with tender light, and the shadows were trooping westward, and the sea was placid, that the punts of Timothy Yule and Jehoshaphat Rudd went side by side to the Tombstone grounds. It was dim and very still upon the water, and solemn, too, in that indifferent vastness between the gloom and the rosy, swelling light. Satan’s Trap lay behind in the shelter and shadow of great hills laid waste—a lean, impoverished, listless home of men. “You dunderhead!” Timothy Yule assured Jehoshaphat. “He’ve been robbin’ you.” “Maybe,” said Jehoshaphat, listlessly. “I been givin’ the back kitchen a coat o’ lime, an’ I isn’t had no time t’ give t’ thinkin’.”