take the pains to look, and went straight to the Groote Dohlen to order six covers for the next day.
After this important business I hurried to little Samson's house and found him in evil case. He lay in an immense old-fashioned bed which had no curtains, and at the corners of which were great marbled wooden pillars which bore above a richly gilt canopy. The face of the little fellow was pale from pain, and in the glance which he cast at me was so much grief, kindness, and wretchedness, that I was touched to the heart The doctor had just left him, saying that his wound was serious. Van Moeulen, who alone had remained to watch all night, sat before his bed, and was reading to him from the Bible.
"Scbnabelewopski," sighed the sufferer, "it is good that you came. You may listen, and 'twill do you good. That is a dear, good book. My ancestors bore it all over the world with them, and much pain, misfortune, cursing and hatred, yes, death itself, did they endure for it. Every leaf in it cost tears and blood: it is the written fatherland of the children of God; it is the holy inheritance of Jehovah."
"Don't talk so much; it's bad for you," said Van Moeulen.
"And indeed," I added, "don't talk of Jehovah, the most ungrateful of gods, for whose existence you have fought to-day."
