The Saint and Death stayed behind to rest awhile. It was a heavenly evening. They could hear the whistle of the low-flighting Cherubim, clear and sharp, under the diviner note of some released Seraph’s wings, where, his errand accomplished, he plunged three or four stars deep into the cool Baths of Hercules; the steady dynamo-like hum of the nearer planets on their axes; and, as the hush deepened, the surprised little sigh of some new-born sun a universe of universes away. But their minds were with the Convoy that their eyes followed.
Said St. Peter proudly at last: “If those people of mine had seen that fellow stripped of all hope in front of ’em, I doubt if they could have marched another yard to-night. Watch ’em stepping out now, though! Aren’t they human?”
“To whom do you say it?” Death answered with something of a tired smile. “I’m more than human. I’ve got to die some time or other. But all other created Beings—afterwards....”
“I know,” said St. Peter softly. “And that is why I love you, O Azrael!”
For now they were alone Death had, of course, returned to his true majestic shape—that only One of all created beings who is doomed to perish utterly, and knows it.
“Well, that’s that—for me!” Death concluded as he rose. “And yet—” he glanced towards the empty plain where the Lower Establishment had withdrawn with their prisoner. “‘Yet doth He devise means.’”
THE SUPPORTS
(Song of the Waiting Seraphs.)
Full Chorus.
To Him Who bade the Heavens abide yet cease not from their motion,