“I would that all the world were as bright and happy as this corner of it,” said Master Simon, as he paused in his work to look down over the sloping meadows to the shining waters of the harbour and the rude little fishing-boats coming to anchor. “But look,” he added, “who is that yonder in our garden beckoning us to come quickly? It is the pastor, Master Hapgood, and two Indians with him, while the other—why, it is the Governor himself! What can be amiss now? Since our peacock has been banished to England, I can think of naught else for which we may be brought to justice.” It was indeed the Governor, anxious-faced and troubled in mien, who came forward to meet them. “One of the same Nascomi ambassadors has come hither again,” he said, “to ask some favour of us. That much I can make out from the interpreter, but for the rest, his message is so strange and his English words so few that we have come to you, who understand the Wampanoag tongue better than does any other, to learn what he would say. Further, I think that his errand has somewhat to do with you.” Master Simon turned his quick, bright eyes upon the Indian interpreter. “Speak on,” he said, and listened with a face growing graver and more disturbed with every word the Wampanoag and the Nascomi uttered. He turned at last to the Governor. “They speak of a terrible pestilence,” he explained, “a scourge that has visited the Nascomis and has already slain a goodly number. I have heard often from the Indians hereabout of these plagues, by which many times whole tribes, even entire nations have been swept away.” “But what wants the fellow with us?” inquired the Governor. “He has come to beg that we pray to our god for their deliverance,” said Master Simon at last. “What?” cried the pastor. “To our God? Is it possible that these Nascomis are Christians?” “No,” returned Master Simon slowly, “he speaks not of the God we know. He begs us to pray for him to that shining god with the terrible voice and a hundred glittering eyes, that walked in this garden six months since and struck such terror to the hearts of himself and his companions. He says that they have asked in vain for help from their own gods and he has come all this long and perilous way to make his prayer, poor savage, to my banished peacock.” The Governor’s face grew dark with trouble, but the minister’s became suddenly transformed with a fury of righteous anger. It was not for nothing that he had listened to the now famous Jeremiah Macrae and his fierce threatenings of Heaven’s vengeance. “Simon Radpath,” he cried, striving to thunder forth his words as did the great minister, but succeeding only a scant half as well; “Simon Radpath, you have committed the most grievous sin known to the human race. You have led a man, nay, a whole nation into idolatry, into worshipping as a god that vain iniquitous creature you so wickedly harboured here.”