I felt awed in the presence of this young man, who was not more than ten years older than myself. I was better satisfied to leave my father’s ashes in his keeping, than if I had built above them the most splendid monument of Pentelican marble or Corinthian brass.
After a frugal meal we started for the public road. It was ten long miles to the nearest highway, and it was ten more from that to Bethany. We discoursed, as we walked along, about spiritual things; and although I did not understand half he said, he spoke with such eloquence and sincerity that he convinced me he had some great mission in the world. We parted a little before sunset with mutual embraces and blessings. I dropped some grateful and admiring tears as I gazed after the heavenly-minded her[pg 58]mit, picking his way with his long staff through the rough places, until he disappeared from sight over the brown, bare hill.
It was not until the comforting and sustaining power of his presence was withdrawn, that I recognized how exhausted and helpless and lonely I was. Fatigue, fear, excitement, sorrow, loss of sleep and inadequate nourishment, had considerably shattered my nerves; and now to appear suddenly in the presence of an uncle who thought he had murdered me, was a difficult and perhaps a dangerous task. I would gladly have turned in any other direction; but my sisters were in the power of the monster who had plotted my assassination. Nothing but a vague fear that those lovely women were in some trouble or distress, gave strength to my tired limbs and courage to my aching heart.
Night came on, and I had to advance more slowly. The full moon was shining halfway down the western sky, but a dark cloud had risen from the ashes of the sunset, and was advancing upward. It was important that I should make all the haste I could, before the light of the moon was obscured by that ascending blackness. To get out of the road might be to lose the whole night.
I moved so rapidly that I became exceedingly tired. If I sat down to rest, a mysterious fear impelled me to rise and press forward to Bethany. I have faith in those secret attractions, those silent monitors, those inexplicable warnings. A minute’s repose of muscle, a minute’s recuperation of breath, and I started again with renewed energy.
A wind came up behind the cloud and drove it furiously onward. It covered the moon and all was dark. I groped my way. I stumbled over obstacles. I advanced slowly. It was late, late in the night, when I entered the village of Bethany. No lights were visible; no sounds were heard. I traversed the streets alone. I passed my uncle’s residence, brimful of maledictions against its wicked proprietor. Soon my father’s house loomed up before me. I saw the long white wall in front of it, and the parapet of the house-top darkening above.
Suddenly a strong blast of wind stirred all the trees of the village. It sighed along the deserted streets and up into the sky. It lifted the lower edge of the cloud from the moon which shone out, low down, just above my father’s house, as it were with a sudden brilliancy.
It revealed to me two astonishing things.
One was a large, strange, gilded vehicle drawn by two powerful horses standing before the gate.
The other was the figure of a woman on the house-top, between me and the moon—a woman with flowing robes and disheveled hair, raising her arms wildly to heaven, while a man was approaching her in the attitude of striking.