something sparkling, at which he leaped with a sudden thirst, and
cried:

"Gold! Jewels! They are mine."

It was an iron casket, old and rusty, that he had raised. Within it,
partly rusted to the case, the precious lustre to which he had devoted
his life flashed out to the o'erspread arch of night, sown thick with
star-dust. A furious strength was added to his body. He broke the
object from the casket and held it up to eyes of increased wonder and
awe. Then, with an oath, he would have plunged it back into the sea.

The outcast preacher interposed.

"It is your Christmas gift, Issachar. _It is a cross._ Curse not! It
cannot harm you nor me. Dip again, and bring me a few oysters, or my
wife may die."

"I know the form of that cross," said the oyster-man. "It is Spanish.
Many a year ago, no doubt, some high-pooped galleon, running close to
the coast, went ashore on Chincoteague and drifted piecemeal through
the inlet, wider then than now. This mummery, this altar toy, destined
for some Papist mission-house, has lain all these years in the
brackish Sound. Ha! ha! That Issachar the Jew should raise a cross,
and on the Christian's Christmas eve! But it is mine! My tongs, my
vessel, myself brought it aboard!"

He seized the preacher's skinny arm with the ferocity of greed.

"I do not claim it, Issachar. My worship is not of forms and images.