"Yes," mused George Bullen, "when they have completed their Testimony," and not an hour, or a day before. For these are evidently God's two faithful witnesses, Enoch and Elijah, the only two men who never passed through mortal death, and hence are the only two saints who can become God's witnesses, in this hideous Anti-christ time, for, as witnesses, they must be slain in the streets of the city of Jerusalem—"where also their Lord was crucified."
There was much angry talk, and savage swearing among the enraged, mystified, disappointed multitude, at the loss of their vengeance upon the witnesses, but, had they known it, they had come off very lightly in being only disappointed, for God's witnesses had the power "when any one willed to injure them, to send forth fire out of their mouths, and to devour their enemies," and in the days that were to follow this first encounter with them, the multitude would learn this to their cost.
CHAPTER X.
A LEBANON ROSE.
With the disappearance of the two witnesses there came a gradual darkening of the heavens, until in the space of a couple of minutes, the whole district became as dark as it had been when the sacrifice in the Temple courtyard had finished.
Thunder and lightning accompanied the darkness, and this time heavy rain. Baffled by the darkness, the multitude ran hither and thither, aimlessly, wildly, in search of their homes. Presently the vivid lightning flashes gave them fitful direction, and gradually the crowds melted away.
George Bullen had swerved from his homeward way, to reach the crowd about the "two witnesses." The gleaming lightning gave him his direction now. He was already drenched to the skin, for the rain was a deluge.
As he moved on through the black darkness, (illumined only with the occasional lightning flashes) he stumbled over something. Some instinct told him it was a human form. Stooping in the blackness, and groping with his hands, he made out that the form was that of a slender woman. There was no movement, and in response to his question, "are you hurt?" there came no reply.
The face, the lips which he touched with his groping fingers, were warm, so that he knew it was not death, though the form was as still as death.