"Are you a methodist parson, young man?" said the other, knitting his brows at him. "No," answered Dudley; "nothing of the kind. I am a plain man, as you are, but one who has learned to reverence the will of God; to think of the future as well as the present; and to remember in all my actions here that they have a reference to a hereafter, in comparison with which this life and all that it affords is a mere nothing." "Then what the devil brought you here?" asked the other; and after an instant's pause, continued, "Well, I have heard of such things as you talk of, but it is all guess-work. No dead man ever came back to tell me what had happened to him after he was gone. All I see rots as soon as it's put in the ground, and the rest's but a chance, or an old woman's tale. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush; so I'll have my will while I live, and risk all the rest." "Did you ever think how much you risk?" asked Dudley, gravely. "Do you know Norfolk Island? Well, suppose for one moment, that all which man can be made to suffer there were increased a thousand fold, and carried on throughout eternity without the possibility of escape, even by death--remember, this is what you risk, and much more." "Pooh! that's nonsense," answered the man. "No one could stand it. Why, sooner than stay there, I stood--one night when they had caught me, after I had got off, and had tied my hands with a strong rope--I stood, I say, with my back to the fire and my wrists to the flame, till the rope was burnt through. There are the marks," he continued, baring his seared and withered arms. "But let us talk of something else. If you are not a parson, you talk very like one, and I hate parsons. What were you convicted of?" "Of killing a man," answered Dudley.