"Kneel, Johannes, Kneel! She comes! Our holy Mother comes!"
Trembling with awe, Johannes waited expectantly.
He could not begin to comprehend that which he saw. Was it a cloud? a blue-white cloud? But why was it not red, in the glow of that sunset? Was it a glacier? But look! The blue-and-white came falling down like an avalanche of snow. Steel-blue lightning flashed in sharp lines upon the red mountain-side.
Then it seemed to him that the descending vapor was divided. The larger part, and darker—that at the left—was blue, and blue-green; that at the right, a brilliant white.
He saw distinctly now. Two figures were there, in shining, luminous garments; and the light of them was not dimmed by the splendor of that setting sun. Rays of green shone from the garment of the larger, but around the head was an aureole of heavenly blue. The other was clothed in lustrous white.
They were so great—so awful! And they swept from the mountain in an instant of time, as a dove drops from out a tree-top down upon the field!
When they stood beside the bier, Johannes looked into the face of the larger figure, and he felt that it was as near and dear to him as a mother. It was indeed his mother—Mother Earth.
She looked upon the dead, and blessed him. She looked at all the living ones, and mused upon them. Then she looked into the face of the sun ere it disappeared, and smiled.
Turning toward the volcano, she beckoned. The side of the crater burst open with a report like thunder, and a seething stream of lava shot down like lightning.
After that everything was night, and gloom, and darkness to Johannes. He saw the bier on fire—consumed to a pile of burning coals—and the thick, black smoke enveloped him.