Meanwhile, what a tenfold recompense for all the care bestowed on him did I reap in the beautiful sympathy of the dumb boy. When I came down stairs that dreadful morning, he met me with a face of such wild dismay as even then arrested my attention. He uttered an audible "Oh!" of most touching tone, and thus expressed the impossibility he felt of realizing the tidings: "Jack _what_? Jack asleep? Jack see, no--think, no. Jack afraid, very. Beautiful Captain B---- gone?--dead? _What_?" and he stamped with the impatience of that fearfully inquisitive _what_. I answered, "Captain B---- gone; water kill--dead." Tears stole down his loving face as he responded, "Poor mam! Mam one;" meaning I was now alone in the world. "God see poor mam one; Jesus Christ love poor mam one." With a feeling of bitter agony I asked him, "What? Jesus Christ love Captain B----?" "Yes," he replied, after a moment's solemn thought on the question, "Yes, Jack much pray; mam much pray; Jesus Christ see much prays." This was true comfort; all the eloquence of all the pulpits in England could not have gone to my heart like that assurance, that Jesus Christ had _seen_ his many dumb prayers on behalf of that lost--Oh, I could not, even in the depth of my unbelieving heart, say, "lost one." I again asked the boy, "Jack _much_ prays?" He answered with solemn fervency, "Very, very much prays. Jack pray morning, pray night; Jack pray church, pray bed. Yes, Jack many days, very, pray God make"--and he finished by signs, that wings should be made to grow from my brother's shoulders, for him to fly to heaven, adding, _Jesus Christ must make the wings;_ and then, with a burst of delighted animation, he told me that he was a "very tall angel, very beautiful." I have repeated this conversation to show the broken language carried on between us; and also how powerfully he expressed his thoughts. Soon after, when I was nearly fainting, a glass of water was held to my lips. I am ashamed to say, I dashed it down, exclaiming, "That murderer!" Jack caught my eye, and echoing my feelings, said, in a bitter way, "Bad water!" then with a look of exulting contempt at the remaining fluid, he added, "Soul gone water? No!" This idea, that the soul was not drowned, electrified me; so good is a word spoken in due season, however trite a truism that word may be.