He was a grim sight now, was Nicholas Bly. His ragged clothes hung and flapped on him as on a scarecrow. His cheeks were sunken and patched with a dirty grey stubble. His eyes glared feverishly out of red sockets, and they seemed to see nothing but to be asking for a sight of something. There was a sort of film on them, but the light in the man shone through it. His shoulders were bowed and his thin arms hung limply by his side, but always his face was upturned, and he shook as he walked, like a flame. The malady in him drove him to the heights. His desire was to be near the sky. Presently he forsook the towns and went from one range of hills to another seeking the highest in Fatland. At last after many days he reached the highest hill, and there he lay flat on his face and would neither eat nor drink. By his side sat the widow Martin, and she made certain that he was going to die, and produced two pennies to lay upon his eyelids when death should come. On the third day he turned over on his back and said: “Jah is coming.” And it was so. Up the steep path came a man with a great beard and a huge nose and eyes that twinkled with the light of merriment and shone with the tenderness of irony, and blazed with the fire of genius. By his side walked a slim dark figure, and with a joyful cry the widow Martin declared it to be Mr. Nicodemus. Nicholas Bly sat up and began to rehearse all the curses that in his bitterness he had prepared. XVII: JAH He began: “By the dead bodies of the children of men; by the plagues and diseases of the bodies of women; by the festering----” Very quietly Jah took His seat by his side and motioned to Mr. Nicodemus to take up his position in front of them. In a voice of the most musical sweetness and with a rich full diction He said: “As we made the ascent I was expostulating with my friend here for the absurdity of his attempt to reinstate himself in the world. There is no Hell. Neither is there a Heaven. These places live by faith as we have done. It is a little difficult for us to understand, but we have no occasion for resentment. Separately it is impossible for us to understand. My meeting with my dark friend here led me a little way on the road towards a solution. The four of us may arrive at something.” The widow Martin scanned Jah closely: “You’ve been a fine man in your time.”