prayers, however, they were early in presenting, and remarkably particular in not omitting, them.
Down at the Marina there was a group of Christian slaves who were not behind their taskmasters in this respect. In an angle of the fortifications the Padre Giovanni was kneeling by the side of a dying slave. The man had been crushed accidentally under a large piece of the rock with which the bulwarks of the harbour were being strengthened. He had been carried to the spot where he lay, and would have been left to die uncared for if Blindi Bobi had not chanced to pass that way. After administering such consolation as lay in a little weak wine and water from his flask, the eccentric but kind-hearted man had gone off in search of the Padre, who was always ready to hasten at a moment's notice to minister to the necessity of slaves in sickness. Too often the good man's services were of little avail, because the sick slaves were frequently kept at work until the near approach of death rendered their labours worthless; so that, when Giovanni came to comfort them, they were almost, if not quite, indifferent to all things.
On the present occasion he was too late to do more than pray that the dying man might be enabled, by the Holy Spirit, to trust in the salvation wrought out—and freely offered to sinners, even the chief—by Jesus Christ.
