"Lie here!" hissed his friend. "In a week you will lie rotting." A wild cry broke from the blood-bespattered lips! "I am not dying! I am not dying! You said just now I should be better soon." "So you will; so you will. But only if we have money. Our last farthing, our last means of raising a farthing, is gone. Without proper food, without a spark of fire, how can you hold out a week in this bitter weather? No, unless you would pass from the light and the gladness of life to the gloom and the shadow of the tomb, you must be instantly baptized." "_Shmad_ myself! Never!" said the sick man, the very word conjuring up an intolerable loathing, deeper than reason; and then another violent fit of coughing shook him. "See how this freezing atmosphere tells on you. You must take Christian gold, I tell you. Thus only shall I be able to get you fire--to get you fire," repeated the hunchback with horrible emphasis. "You call yourself a disbeliever. If so, what matters? Why should you die for a miserable prejudice? But you are no true infidel. So long as you shrink from professing any religion under the sun, you still possess a religion. Your unfaith is but foam-drift on the deep sea of faith; but lip-babble while your heart is still infected with superstition. Come, bid me fetch the priest with his crucifix and holy water. Let us fool him to the top of his bent. Rouse yourself; be a man and live." "No, no, brother! I will be a man and die." "Fool!" hissed the hunchback. "It fits not one who has lived for months by Christian gold to be so nice." "You lie!" Moshé gasped. "The seven months that you and I have known each other, it is Christian gold that has warmed you and fed you and rejoiced you, and that, melted down, has flowed in your veins as wine. Whence, then, took I the money for our riotings?" "From your father, you said." "Yes, from my spiritual father," was the grim reply. "No, having that belief, which _you_ still lack, in the hollowness and mockery of all save pleasure, I became a Christian. For a time they paid me well, but as soon as I had been put on the annual report I had served my purpose and the supplies fell off. I could be converted again in another town or country, but I dare not leave you. But you are a new man, and should I drag you into the fold they will reward us both well. Instead of subsisting on dry bread and milk you will fare on champagne and turtle-soup once more." Moshé sat up and gazed wildly one long second at the Tempter. He looked at his own fleshless arms, and shuddered. He felt the icy hand of Death upon him. He knew himself a young man still. Must he go down into the eternal darkness, and be folded in the freezing clasp of the King of Terrors, while the warm bosom of Life offered itself to his embrace? No; give him Life, Life, Life, polluted and stained with hypocrisy, but still Life, delicious Life.