Chapter 10 - Page 2

for a Te Deum after your escape?"
demanded Ghita, gently, and yet with emphasis. "Is there no God for you
to thank, as well as for the vice-governatore?"

"_Peste!_--our French deity is little thought of just now, Ghita.
Republics, as you know, have no great faith in religion--is it not so,
_mon brave Américain?_ Tell us, Etooel; have you any religion
in America?"

As Ithuel had often heard Raoul's opinions on this subject and knew the
prevailing state of France in this particular, he neither felt nor
expressed any surprise at the question. Still, the idea ran counter to
all his own notions and prejudices, he having been early taught to
respect religion, even when he was most serving the devil. In a word,
Ithuel was one of those descendants of Puritanism who, "God-ward," as it
is termed, was quite unexceptionable, so far as his theory extended, but
who, "manward," was "as the Scribes and Pharisees." Nevertheless, as he
expressed it himself, "he always stood up for religion," a fact that his
English companions had commented on in jokes, maintaining that he even
"stood up" when the rest of the ship's company were on their knees.

"I'm a little afraid, Monsieur Rule," he answered, "that in France you
have entered the rope of republicanism at the wrong end. In Ameriky, we
even put religion before dollars; and if that isn't convincing I'll give
it up. Now, I do wish you could see a Sunday once in the Granite State,
Signorina Ghita, that you might get some notion what our western
religion ra'ally is."

"All real religion--all real devotion to God--is, or ought to be, the
same, Signor Ithuello, whether in the east or in the west. A Christian
is a Christian, let him live or die where he may."

"That's not exactly platform, I fancy. Why, Lord bless ye, young lady,
_your_ religion, now, is no more like _mine_ than my religion is like
that of the Archbishop of Canterbury's, or Monsieur Rule's, here!"

"_La mienne_!" exclaimed Raoul--"I pretend to none, _mon brave_; there
can be no likeness to nothing."

Ghita's glance was kind, rather than reproachful; but it was profoundly
sorrowful.

"In what can our religion differ," she asked, "if we are both
Christians? Americans or Italians, it is all the same."

"That comes of knowing nothing about Ameriky," said Ithuel, filled with
the conceit of his own opinion of himself and of the part of the world
from which he came. "In the first place, you have a Pope and cardinals
and bishops and all such things in your religion, while we have none."

"Certainly,