Pacing the room, she sang and prayed in a frenzy of emotional tumult. But she heard only the echo of her own voice, and only the wailings of her own songs came back. Negro that she was, she was intelligent enough to know that Jud Carpenter spoke the truth—that not for his life would he have dared to say this if it had not had some truth in it. What?—she did not know—she only knew that harm was coming to Helen.
She called aloud for help—for Edward Conway. But the mill was closed tight—the windows nailed.
Another hour passed. It began to tell on the old creature's mind. Negroes are simple, religious, superstitious folks, easily unbalanced by grief or wrong.
She began to see visions in this frenzy of religious excitement, as so many of her race do under the nervous strain of religious feeling. She fell into a trance.
It was most real to her. Who that has ever heard a negro give in his religious experience but recognizes it? She was carried on the wings of the morning down to the gates of hell. The Devil himself met her, tempting her always, conducting her through the region of darkness and showing her the lakes of fire and threatening her with all his punishment if she did not cease to believe. She overcame him only by constant prayer. She fled from him, he followed her, but could not approach her while she prayed.... She was rescued by an angel—an angel from heaven ... an angel with a flaming sword. Through all the glories of heaven this angel conducted her, praised her, and bidding her farewell at the gate, told her to go back to earth and take this: It was a torch of fire!
“Burn! burn!” said the angel—“for I shall make the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire on a sheaf. And they shall devour all the people around about, on the right hand and the left; and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place, even in Jerusalem.”
She came out of the trance in a glory of religious fervor: “Jerusalem shall be inhabited ag'in!—the Angel has told me—told me—Burn—burn,” she cried. “Oh Lord—you have spoken and Zion has ears to hear—Amen.”
Quickly she gathered up the loose cotton and placed it at the door, piling it up to the very bolt. She struck a match, swaying and rocking and chanting: “Yea, Lord, thy servant hath heard—thy servant hath heard!”
The flames leaped up quickly enveloping the door. The room began to fill with smoke, but she retreated to a far corner and fell on her knees in prayer. The panels of the door caught first and the flames spreading upward soon heated the lock around which the wood blazed and crackled. It burned through. She sprang up, rushed through the blinding smoke, struck the door as it blazed, in a broken mass, and rushed out. Down the long main room she ran to a low window, burst it, and stepped out on the ground:
“Jerusalem shall be inhabited again,” she shouted as she ran breathless toward home.