Later on I busied myself with an inspection of the hut, and my first
attentions were for the miraculous image. I looked upon it with awe, and I
knelt to it in prayer for forgiveness for the unworthiness I brought to the
service of the shrine.
The image itself was very crude of workmanship and singularly ghastly. It
reminded me poignantly of the Crucifix that had hung upon the whitewashed
wall of my mother's private dining-room and had been so repellent to my
young eyes.
From two arrow wounds in the breast descended two brown streaks, relics of
the last miraculous manifestation. The face of the young Roman centurion
who had suffered martyrdom for his conversion to Christianity was smiling
very sweetly and looking upwards, and in that part of his work the sculptor
had been very happy. But the rest of the carving was gruesome and the
anatomy was gross and bad, the figure being so disproportionately broad as
to convey the impression of a stunted dwarf.
The big book standing upon the pulpit of plain deal proved, as I had
expected, to be a missal; and it became my custom to recite from it each
morning thereafter the office for the day.
In a rude cupboard I found a jar of baked earth that was half full of oil,
and another larger jar containing some cakes of maize bread and a handful
of chestnuts.
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