the final word of despair: 'I am in love!'

Father Kinkaid turned to the man in the doorway. 'Not with Monsieur Dumenisl, I hope,' he said pleasantly.

The Haitian poet stepped into the room. He was a fat man, fatter even than Father Kinkaid remembered, with a Cape jasmine in his buttonhole and pomaded, crinkly hair.

'Am I early?' he asked hurriedly in a nervous, sputtering voice. 'Do I perhaps intrude?'

As he came closer Father Kinkaid saw that he was in a flutter of rage. He was like an enraged fowl. It was difficult not to smile at him. Mistress Joachim was indifferent to his presence, perhaps unconscious of it; she did not lift her head from her arm.

'Do I perhaps intrude?' he repeated, his eyes bulging at Father Kinkaid as if they demanded some explanation from him. 'Am I perhaps indiscreet?'

"The poetic license,' Father Kinkaid assured him, reaching for his hat under the chair. 'As a matter of fact, Madame and I were just going out for a breath of air. You will excuse us, I am sure.'

The poet, balanced absurdly on the balls of his feet, swayed back and forth. He looked from Father Kinkaid to the bowed head of Mistress Joachim. 'But, Madame,' he protested, 'your dinner your guests — the little matter we had in hand surely - Suddenly he lost control. He shouted, 'Have you lost your mind?'

'He is so fat,' thought Father Kinkaid, 'that if we come to blows I don't see what I could do to him. He would probably fall on me for a starter.'

He turned to the bowed head on the table, unresponsive as a bronze idol of Benin.

'Well, what about it? Are you coming?'

She rose hastily. She seemed to have

come to life with a jerk, and in a surprisingly clear voice said, 'My shawl?'

He took it from the back of her chair and dropped it about her massive shoulders. Then, taking her arm, he set her in motion, as one releases a boat from the shore. She looked ahead of her, at neither of them, but Dumenisl moved forward, swayed rather, and clutched at her arm.

'Natalie-you — you

-'he choked. But with one thrust of her arm, a thrust somehow startlingly ferocious, she threw him aside. He reeled backward, and she and Father Kinkaid left the room together.

In the hall below, the butler was standing. He had been looking anxiously upward, wondering perhaps if he should interfere.

'Wait,' said Father Kinkaid. He tore a leaf from a notebook he carried, scribbled on it, and folded it up. "Take this down to the fort to the Commandant. Be quick about it. Run!'

The butler was looking at his mistress; she was staring ahead of her out of the doorway.

"Tell him,' said Father Kinkaid. She turned. 'If you fail to do as you are told ' she said.

He made off in great haste.

III

Outside, in the twilight, the carriage of Monsieur Dumenisl was waiting. His initials were blazoned on the door; a lantern was lit by the coachman. There was no one visible up or down the street but the form of the retreating butler. Without even consulting each other they climbed in.

'Drive first to Hannah's Rest,' said Father Kinkaid, ‘and drive fast.'

Presently they were in the open country, with the dim emptiness of cane fields on either side of them. The stars were coming out overhead. It

was too dark to see anything but each other's outline. Father Kinkaid could feel his fingers twitching.

'Where does it start?' he asked.

"They will be starting now near King's Hill; all the estates will blaze shortly. Then they will march on Frederiksted.'

'Frederiksted will be all right. You saw the note I sent?'

She shrugged her shoulders. 'He is a weak and obstinate man.'

Unfortunately she was right. His fingers went on twitching.

'I am going to warn each estate as we pass. Then when we catch up with the rioters if there really are any I shall speak to them. I count on your presence somewhat, but I know most of them. They have come to me for help at one time or another, and I have done what I could for them. I believe I can turn them back.'

'Oh, do you!' She lapsed into heavy silence.

They drove on, and in the darkening earth that held them, roofed over by a silent abyss of stars, it was impossible to think of danger. He even grew accustomed to the disordered clatter of their horse's hoofs. As they turned in at Hannah's Rest their furious pace brought the startled owner to the door. Father Kinkaid climbed out and drew him aside, out of earshot of the few negroes who stood about, knowing perhaps already what he had come to tell. He explained in whispers.

'Warn all those near you, Camporico, Concordia, as far as Carlton. I must press on beyond. I left word at Frederiksted and they'll send out to the North End.'

He climbed back beside the dark shadow that was Mistress Joachim. She awaited him impassively, as though they were not both perhaps wrecking all she had striven for. Suddenly she said, "This morning I found a little

image of myself on my doorstep. It was spattered with blood. That is why I knew I should have to die.'

'Oh, please don't,' he murmured. He did not wish her to revert to savagery before his eyes. He felt that if she did so it might be more than his reason could endure.

'Do you think,' she said, 'that we can wipe out a lifetime of sin in one moment, if that moment is great enough?'

'Perhaps.'

'Don't you know?' she demanded, turning toward him.

'You are terribly disconcerting.' He smiled at her, hoping to recall her cherished attitude of a woman of the world. But, after staring at him for a moment, she began to talk to herself, native fashion, an indistinguishable murmur of words, shaking her head from time to time and sighing heavily.

At Golden Grove the owner urged them to turn back. "They will tear you piecemeal,' he said. 'You are mad to try to stop them. Ride back as fast as you can gallop. I'll give you a fresh horse.' He ignored the presence of Mistress Joachim; he knew well enough who she was.

'Do you really think they'll kill me?' asked Father Kinkaid. 'At any rate I've got to try. I've preached control to them daily for twelve years and this will be my swan song, apparently.'

They looked up to the hill, where a glow was gathering like moonrise. As they looked it sharpened to red, climbed higher. Then bells on estates ahead of them began to peal out, and for several minutes kept up a wild clangor. They stopped, began again, and, in the intervals between, the night was filled by a sound like the murmur in a hollow shell held to the ear.

Father Kinkaid and the planter looked at each other.

'Well,' said the planter.

'I'd better go on,' said Father Kinkaid.

'If you change your mind there are horses in my stable.' The planter swung up to the saddle and galloped off.

Their driver drove them slowly up the main road. A few carriages driven furiously and men on horseback passed them in the direction of Frederiksted. Father Kinkaid hailed those he recognized. Then they were alone again on the road, bright now with the reflection from the red sky. He tried to prepare what he would say, but he knew that cool reason would not be listened to. He must be the priest robed in gold and tearing open before them the great scroll of Heaven.

He could not do it. He was not the priest of Mistress Joachim or of this people. He would speak his few words, he would reason a little, and they would swarm over him; but his last feeling would be not fear, not pity, not even forgiveness for them, but contempt. The driver was reluctant to go on; nevertheless he drove them, with some urging, toward King's Hill. Then he stopped. The road was empty, but they were not alone the night was filled now with flame, with sound, with menace. Father Kinkaid felt a purely physical shrinking of the flesh and nerves. He saw already in imagination distorted ape faces and cane bills running blood.

'Drive up to the hill,' he commanded. The harshness of his own voice surprised him. But Mistress Joachim caught his arm.

'Wait. Don't you hear that?' 'I hear,' he replied. 'No, no. I mean behind us.' He turned his head, listened. "There must be a horse coming our way.'

'Yes, it is close.' She clutched her shawl about her, tried to stumble out.

'You are not going to get out?' he demanded.

'Yes, yes, at once. Come, let us not waste time.' She was on the ground beside the carriage. She leaned toward him so that her face was directly below his and whispered, 'It is Dumenisl. He will catch up with us.'

The vision of the fat poet galloping made him smile, though a bit uneasily.

'Do not smile,' she said between set teeth. 'Do not dare to smile. He will be armed. Are you?'

'Oh,' he exclaimed slowly. 'How extraordinary women are!'

That it should be she who would realize at once what Dumenisl would do for of course the efficient, brutal directness of the action made it inevitable. And yet he had never once thought of it.

'Get out,' she persisted. 'Send the driver on. He will follow the carriage.' Without wasting more precious time she turned to urge the driver. But he was sullen. After all he was Dumenisl's.

Father Kinkaid got out reluctantly, feeling smaller than ever, less protected with his feet on the ground. Suddenly Mistress Joachim stripped off her rings and handed them to the driver.

'Oh, really I can't let you do that' — but he knew he was ridiculous before her look of scorn answered him. The driver examined the rings, said something Father Kinkaid could not understand, and drove off slowly. They had barely time to reach the cane field before the horseman appeared. Just before them was a stone watch-house, dark and empty. They went under the low door and stood inside together quite still. There was a pungent odor of sugar from some near-by mill. It was stiflingly hot and mosquitoes swarmed about their heads. In the light from the burning cane fields they could see the solitary horseman. He was slowing up his fagged horse, sagging

forward in the saddle and perhaps peering from right to left.

But Father Kinkaid could not be sure it was Dumenisl. 'What do you think?' he asked. 'Is it he?'

'It is he,' she replied with conviction. He could feel his hands twitching again. The noise had split now into separate, more significant sounds. It

was very near.

'When he passes,' he said, 'I will go out and meet them as they come. I'll speak to them-with God's help,' - with God's help,' for he no longer counted on Mistress Joachim or even on himself.

The rider passed behind a line of trees. Shortly he would be over the hill.

Father Kinkaid tried to think impersonally of the eternity now so close, of communion with God. He could think of nothing. Mistress Joachim stirred beside him. He turned to look at her; her eyes were dilated, her lips drawn back from her teeth. He touched her and found her rigid as stone. She was in ecstasy. In spite of himself he began to shudder. What had his world become? A mob of savages, a man bent on murdering him, and beside him a woman locked in a religious trance.

'But,' he told himself, 'don't forget God.'

He closed his eyes and tried to think of Him serenely, but with perfect faith. A cry from Mistress Joachim made him open his eyes. In the doorway of the watch-house stood Dumenisl. He had crept up on them.

He felt a sting like a knife prick high on his shoulder. Then a momentary vertigo blinded him, a great weight hurled against him, and another flash, another report. He was carried to his knees.

When he could see clearly the door was empty. He could hear a man running and, in the silence that followed, heavy breathing like a stricken animal.

He knew he must do something for Mistress Joachim. He realized how completely she had saved him, not only from the second bullet, but from the necessity of meeting the rioters, who would most certainly have slaughtered him. He half lifted her heavy weight from the floor. All her silk ruffles and shawls billowed over and entangled him, her loosened hair fell across his neck, her warm flesh smothered him. He felt drowned in her immense vitality, though in that moment he knew her to be dying. Warm blood, from whose wound he could not tell, streamed down his arms. He knew that in a moment he would faint, but he managed to lift her up.

Through the low doorway a rosy flame reached to the top of the hill, brightened and shot across the sky. Then smoke, fiery and voluptuously curling, mounted in columns like the twisted portals of a gateway. 'Oh, look, Father!'

Father Kinkaid was thankful that he could not see his face.

There was a flash and a report which almost burst the narrow stone walls.

slipped to the floor beside her he managed to deny himself even that final indulgence.

ARE the times ripe for a fundamental reconstruction of the strategy and policies of Protestant Christianity in respect to foreign missions? My own study of the missionary situation from data available in the United States leaves me skeptical, not only of the basic strategy of the Protestant missionary forces, but also of the necessity for maintaining so many organizations. I question whether there is not unnecessary overlapping and duplication, whether the business and financial management is as good as might reasonably be expected in view of the millions now involved, and whether the mission boards in the United States responsible for the work can or do exercise effective control.

As a missionary problem the world situation presents a genuine challenge to Christians, if we assume that there has been sufficient success in establishing Christianity and perfecting it in practice in the United States to warrant the attempt to Christianize the 66 per cent of the world's population who are not Christians at this time. Recent estimates indicate that, of a total world population of 1800 million, 625 million may be classed as Christians. Of the total number of Christians, the three main divisions are estimated to consist of 175 million Protestants, 300 million Roman Catholics, and 125 million adherents of Eastern Orthodox churches.

The 1175 million non-Christians were estimated to consist of 225 million Mohammedans, 215 million Hindus,

300 million Confucianists and Taoists, 140 million Buddhists, 20 million Shintoists, 160 million Animists, and 15 million Jews, with the remainder adherents of miscellaneous faiths.

I

The present phase in China's attempt to establish a stable social system on a more democratic basis has given prominence to the work of foreign missionary societies in that country. The reports indicate that the Protestant Christian community in China numbers less than 800,000 persons, although the work of most of the missionary societies dates back many years, in some cases more than seventy-five. If, looking forward, we assume that these 800,000 have become adherents in the last twenty years, the estimate indicates that we shall need at least 2500 years and more than fifty billion dollars to Christianize but one fourth of the population of China.

The World Missionary Atlas, published in 1925 under the supervision of organizations representing Protestant denominations in the United States, presents the statistics of more than one hundred Protestant missionary societies maintaining work of some kind in China. The societies included report the number of their communicants to be 402,539, thus indicating that after more than seventy-five years of effort less than one per cent of the population of China have become communicants of Protestant Christian churches.