The hallelujah chorus was still ringing when the watcher across the street stepped out from the shadow of the hornbeam. Without a pause he strode over to the platform. Another moment and the door had shut behind him. The minister of the Trumet Regular church had entered the Come-Outer chapel to attend a Come-Outer prayer meeting! CHAPTER V IN WHICH THE PARSON CRUISES IN STRANGE WATERS The Come-Outer chapel was as bare inside, almost, as it was without. Bare wooden walls, a beamed ceiling, a raised platform at one end with a table and chairs and the melodeon upon it, rows of wooden settees for the congregation--that was all. As the minister entered, the worshipers were standing up to sing. Three or four sputtering oil lamps but dimly illumined the place and made recognition uncertain. The second verse of the hymn was just beginning as Ellery came in. Most of the forty or more grown people in the chapel were too busy wrestling with the tune to turn and look at him. A child here and there in the back row twisted a curious neck but twisted back again as parental fingers tugged at its ear. The minister tiptoed to a dark corner and took his stand in front of a vacant settee. The man whom Ellery had decided must be Captain Eben Hammond was standing on the low platform beside the table. A quaint figure, patriarchal with its flowing white hair and beard, puritanical with its set, smooth-shaven lips and tufted brows. Captain Eben held an open hymn book back in one hand and beat time with the other. He wore brass-bowed spectacles well down toward the tip of his nose. Swinging a heavy, stubby finger and singing in a high, quavering voice of no particular register, he led off the third verse: “Oh, who shall weep when the roll is called And who shall shout for joy?” The melodeon and the hymn book were in accord as to the tune, but Captain Eben and the various members of the congregation seemed to have a desire to improvise. They sang with spirit, however, and the rhythmic pat of feet grew louder and louder. Here and there men and women were swaying and rocking their bodies in time to the music. The chorus for each verse was louder than the one preceding it. Another hymn was given out and sung. And another and still another. The windows rattled. The patting grew to a steady “thump! thump!” Momentary pauses between lines were punctuated by hallelujahs and amens. Standing directly in front of the minister was a six-foot, raw-boned individual whose clothes smelled strongly of fish, and whose hands, each swung at the end of an exposed five inches of hairy red wrist, looked like flippers. At the end of the third hymn this personage sprang straight up into the air, cracked the heels of a pair of red cowhide boots together, and whooped: “Glory be! Send the PAOWER!” in a voice like the screech of a northeast gale. Mr. Ellery, whom this gymnastic feat had taken by surprise, jumped in sympathy, although not as high.