“Say?” Brack raised himself in the car, shaking suddenly with distorting rage. “He heard me right out without bucking in once--all I’ve told you from the start, and a bit more--and then he said what the whole durned crowd of them say, every bright boy among ’em, but what I reckon they’ll soon be shutting their mouths on for ever and ever, Amen--he said, ‘I’ll ask Mr. Lancaster!’ That’s the ticket--always has been. ‘I’ll ask Mr. Lancaster. What a Lancaster says, goes!’” His hand fell accidentally on the Prayer-book, and he quietened. The bell had ceased ringing up on the hill. Lanty regarded him gravely. “I know what you believe, Brack--it didn’t take long to guess who sent that chapter out of the Bible--but you can hardly expect us to believe it, too, just on your word. You’ll admit it’s a queer story. And what’s it got to do with the hotpot?” Brack fiddled with the wheel, suddenly embarrassed and distressed, his personal animosity fading before the pressure of his inexplicable fear. His tale had run fluently enough to Hamer, a listener from without. Before the agent’s steady contempt it fell to pieces. “Dead woolly things!” he muttered, incoherent and unintelligible; and other words completely lost. And then again: “Wet little woolly things! _Dead!_” Lanty might be forgiven for thinking that his sudden religious mania had been backed by the “Duke’s” ale. He touched up his horse, but Brack put out a hand. “I’ve just been slinging a word over the wire!” he said queerly. “Really?” Lancaster was wearying to get away. “To the Clerk of the Weather, I presume?” “No! Will you listen, if I tell you?” He leaned forward eagerly, and then got his hands back to their place as the sound of wheels warned him from the near corner. Denny tore round it, and pretended to have a heart-attack when he saw Brack. “Danged if it bain’t the Judgment hissel! Runnin’ about in a motor an’ all!” He put his hands together, and turned his eyes to heaven. “Give us a bit of a prayer, Parson Brack, do!” Livid, Brack snatched at the Prayer-book with quivering fingers, and stood up. “Guess you shall have it right now!” he cried, and raised his hat. The book fell open instantly at the Forms of Prayer to be used at Sea. By the fierce rush of his words they guessed that he knew the page by heart. “O most glorious and merciful Lord God.... Look down, we beseech thee, and hear us, calling out of the depths of misery, and out of the jaws of this death, which is ready to swallow us up! Save, Lord, or else we perish. The living, the living shall praise thee....” His voice steadied as he read, the greatness of the need taking hold, not only of the speaker, but of the two men hearkening. Mechanically, Lanty put his hand to his cap, and Denny awkwardly followed suit. The last words came out quietly into calm.