The next day he went to his desk and began to write, but speedily and urgently called for Israel Swaffham. When he answered the call, Oliver was in great physical agony, but he took some papers from a drawer and said, "When I am no longer here, Israel, give these to my wife. Thurloe has the key to all State questions; he knows my intents and my judgments on them. And there is one more charge for you: when all is over, speak to the army for me. Tell the men to remember me while they live. Truly, I think they will. Tell them I will take love and boldness to myself, and plead for them when I am nearer to God than I am now. It may be we shall serve together again—among the hosts of the Most High. Say to them my tears hinder my last words, as indeed they do. Now let me lean on you, Israel. I am going to my last hard fight."
When he reached his room, he stood a moment and looked wistfully round it. It was but a narrow chamber, but large enough for the awfully close, near conflict, that he had to fight in it,—a conflict which was to put asunder flesh and spirit, and within its few feet, with strange, strong pains deliver the Eternal out of Time, and set free his Immortal Self from the carnal prison-house of many woes in which he had suffered for more than fifty-nine years. For ten terrible days and nights the anguish of this struggle went on unceasingly, sometimes the great Combatant being "all here" and full of faith and courage, sometimes far down the shoal of life and reason, and wandering uneasily through bygone days of battle and distress and darkness. Then Israel held his burning hands, and listened, while in a voice very far off, he ejaculated such passages as had then been familiar to him:—"The shield of His mighty men is made red, the valiant men are in scarlet. The chariots shall rage in the streets—they shall seem like torches, they shall run like the lightnings."[4] And once at the midnight when all was still he cried, "If the Lord had suffered it, then I had died on the battle-field as His Man of War, with tumult, with shouting and with the sound of the trumpet."[5]
[4] Nahum 2:4.
[5] Amos 2: 2.
He had turned to face his last enemy on the twenty-fourth of August, and on the thirtieth there was such a tempest as had never before been seen in England. Whole forests were laid on the ground; traffic was swept from the roads and the streets, and the ships from the stormy seas; and the tide at Deptford, to the dismay of the superstitious, threw up the carcass of a monstrous whale. The chambers of Whitehall were filled with the roar of the great winds. The guards leaned on their arms, praying or talking solemnly together on the prodigy of the storm.
"Michael and the devil had a dispute about the body of Moses," said one old grizzled trooper to his companion. "Are they fighting about our Cromwell, think ye, Abel?"
"Who knows?" was the answer. "The Prince of the Powers of the Air has His battalions out this night, but Michael and his host will be sufficient. You'll see, Jabez, when the storm is over, our Cromwell will go;" and he drew his hand across his eyes and added, "He'll have company, Jabez, a great bodyguard of ministering angels; and sure a soul needs them most of all between here and there. Evil ones no doubt, to be watched and warded, but the Guard sent is always sufficient."
Israel sat near the men, and heard something of what they said, but he was too inert with grief and weariness to answer them. Presently, however, Doctor Verity joined him. They said a few words about the storm, their words being emphasised by the falling and crashing of trees outside the windows, and by thunder and lightning and driven torrents of rain; and then Doctor Verity said in a low voice, "He knows nothing of this—he is still as death; he barely breathes; he is unconscious; where is he, Israel?"
"Not quite gone—not quite here—— Is he watching the battle of elements in the middle darkness?" Then he told the Doctor what Abel and Jabez had said, and for some minutes only the pealing thunder and the howling winds made answer. But John Verity was thinking, and as soon as there was a moment's lull in the uproar, he said, "Oliver is no stranger to the Immortals, Israel. They have heard of his fame. In their way, they have seen and helped him already. Oliver has fought the devil all his life long. While his body lies yonder, without sense or motion, where is his spirit? Is it now having its last fight with its great enemy? Israel, I was thinking of what Isaiah says, about hell being moved to meet Lucifer at his coming."
"I remember."