“THIS SAYING SHALL COME TO PASS.”
Tom Hammond greeted his _sub_ most heartily. Ralph had been away, in
Paris, for a fortnight, partly on business, partly for a change.
As soon as their greetings were exchanged, he turned eagerly to Hammond,
as he said:—
“But I say, old man, what on earth is all this jargon you wrote me about,
the return of the Christ, and——”
He paused suddenly. His eyes had just caught sight of the great placard.
His gaze was riveted on it. He read the two words aloud:—
“TO-DAY? PERHAPS!”
In a voice of wondering amaze, he gasped:—
“What’s _that_, Tom? What _does_ it mean?”
Tom Hammond repeated, in a few sentences, what he had previously written
to his friend, as to his conversion, then, passing on to the subject of
the Lord’s second coming, he said:
“I am so impressed, Ralph, with the imminence of our Lord’s return, that
I have had that placard done to arrest the attention of callers upon
me, and give me an opportunity of speaking to them about their eternal
destiny. To-day, too, I have been impressed so with the necessity of
speaking to the world—“The Courier’s” world, I mean of course—on this
great, this momentous subject, that I have made it the subject of my
‘Prophet’s Chamber’ column.”
He gathered up the sheets of his M.S. he had written, and passed them
over the table to Ralph Bastin.
“You will see, I have written it in the most simple, almost colloquial
style, Ralph,” he said. “I wanted it to be a man’s quiet, earnest, simple
utterance to his fellow man, and not a journalist’s article.”
Ralph Bastin’s eyes raced over the papers. His face was a strange study,
while he read, reflecting a score of different, ever-changing emotions,
but amid them all never losing a constant deepening amaze.
As he finished the last sheet, he looked Tom Hammond hard and searchingly
in the face.
“My dear Tom,” he began. His voice was very grave, very serious. “You’ll
ruin The Courier! You will ruin yourself! The world will call you mad——!”
“They called my Lord mad, Ralph, and they have called His servants mad,
over and over again, ever since.”
There was not a shadow of cant in his voice and manner, as he went on:—
“The word of our God, Ralph—which is the _only real_ rule of life, tells
us that Christ, whose name I profess, said:—
“‘Whosoever shall confess me, before men, him will I confess also before
my Father which is in Heaven.... If any man will come after Me, _let
him deny himself_, and take up his cross _daily_, and follow Me. For
whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his
life, for My sake, the same shall save it. For what is a man advantaged,
if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul....
“‘For whosoever shall be ashamed of me _and of My words_.’ (‘_Surely I
come quickly_,’ Ralph, is one of _His very last_ recorded words,) ‘of him
shall the Son of Man be ashamed, when He shall come in His own glory,
and in His Father’s, and of the holy angels.’”
Tom Hammond leant forward in his chair to lay his hand on the wrist
of the other, to plead with him. But, with an exclamation of angry
impatience, Ralph, cried:
“Hang it, old man, you must be going dotty!”
With an expression of annoyance, almost amounting to disgust, he swung
round on his heel.
“Look here, Tom,” he began.
He swirled back to meet his friend face to face.
Then, with a startled cry, he stared at the chair, in which, an instant
before, Tom Hammond had been sitting.
The chair was empty!
“Good God!” he gasped.
Instinctively he knew what had happened! Involuntarily his eyes travelled
to the Placard, and in the same moment he recalled the closing words of
Tom Hammond’s M.S. which he had just read:—
“‘_Then shall it come to pass, that which is written_, “ONE SHALL BE
TAKEN, THE OTHER LEFT.’”
A strange, unnatural trembling seized him. He dropped into the chair he
had been occupying, and stared at the empty revolving chair opposite.
“Good——God!” He slowly repeated the words. There was no thought of
irreverence in the utterance. It was the unconscious acknowledgment of
God’s Presence and Power.
For a time—he never knew how long—he sat still and silent like a man
stunned. Then, as his eyes travelled slowly to where the sheets of M.S.’s
lay, he smiled wearily, drew them towards him, and took his stylo from
his pocket. Putting the most powerful pressure of his will upon himself,
he began to write after the last works penned by his translated chief:—
“P.S.—Written by the sub-editor of “The Courier.” By the time this
printed sheet is being read, the world will have learned that a section
of the community has been suddenly taken from our midst. The Editor of
The Courier, the giant mind and kindly heart of Tom Hammond, have been
taken from us.
“The writer of this postscript, who was in the room, when the “Prophet”
of The Courier was taken, was in the act of scorning his message as to
the nearing of the great translation. “In a moment, in the twinkling of
an eye” he was gone.
“The writer has not left the room since, and has no means of knowing
who else among those known to him are missing,—not many _personal_
acquaintances, he fears, since one’s personal clique has never shown any
very marked signs of what one has _hitherto_ considered an _ultra_ type
of Christianity, a condition of “_righteous overmuch_.”
“When we pass out of this room, presently, and touch the great outside
world once more, what shall we find? How soon will it be generally known
that a section of the community—a larger section, maybe, than we conceive
possible—has been silently, suddenly, secretly taken from our midst? What
will follow? Where are the prophets who shall teach us where we are, and
what we may expect? Does the end of the world follow next? Is there any
order of events, specified in the Bible, that follows this mysterious
translation, if so, what is it? Who will show us these things?
“Again, since I, the writer of this postscript, am left, while my friend,
Hammond, is taken, _why am I left_, and why shall I find—as of course
I shall when I begin to go abroad among mine acquaintance—hundreds of
others _left_? I have been christened, confirmed, have occasionally
‘communicated,’—this is the clerical term, though as I write, it
occurs to me that there must have been some flaw, somewhere, in the
‘_communicating_.’
“I have always supposed myself a Christian by virtue of these things,
to which a clean, decent life has been added. Thousands upon thousands,
I feel sure, will be puzzled by this same contemplation, when this
wonderful Translation becomes generally known.
“If we are not made Christians by christening, confirmation,
communicating, why have we always been taught so, by our clergy? How many
of these same clergy shall we find _left_ behind.
“And I suppose there will have been some kind of kindred process at work
among the Nonconformists bodies—in pulpit and pew, alike. For ourselves,
we have come little in contact with Nonconformity, but, if what is
accepted generally, to-day, as to the religious situation, be true—that
the curse of the Ritualism of the ‘Establishment,’ finds its parallel in
the Rationalism, Unitarianism, Socialism, etc., of Nonconformity—then I
shall expect to find as many Nonconformists, lay and ministerial, _left_
behind from this mysterious, spiritual translation, as churchmen.”
There came a tap at the door. The messenger boy Charley, appeared. He
glanced towards the empty Editor’s chair, then stammered.
“I beg pardon, sir, I thought Mr. Hammond was here, sir. They have jest
blown up the tube to know if the ‘Prophet’s’ column was ready.”
Ralph Bastin noticed that the eyes of the boy flitted from his face to
the placard.
“Know what that means, Charley?” Bastin asked.
“Yus, sir, leastways, I knows what Mr. Hammond means by it! E sez that
Jesus Christ’s comin’ back, an’ goin’ to take all the real Christians
out ’er the world, an’ nobody wont see ’em go, nor nothink. I ’eard Mr.
Hammond ’splainin’ it all to a gent, t’other day.”
Curious to know if the boy himself had thought seriously at all of the
matter, Bastin said:—
“What do _you_ think of it, Charley?”
“Wal, it’s like this, sir, I aint been to no Sunday School since I wus
quite a young ’un, ’bout eight perhaps. An’ I never goes to no Church nor
Chapel, cos why? Why ’cos Sunday’s the only day—’cepts my ’olidays—when I
gits any chance fur any rickreation or fresh hair. So I aint up much in
’ligious things. But my sister, Lulu, she walks out wi’ a chap as teaches
in a Sunday School—leastways, he oosed to afore he took up wi’ our Lulu,
but now ’e wants ’is Sunday School time fur spoonying, an’ ’e can spoon,
sir, there’s no error—well, knowin’ as ’e oosed to do summat at ’ligion,
I ups an’ arsks ’im about what Mr. Hammond said, about that takin’ away
business, an ’e (Jimmy Doubleyou, Lulu’s chap, I mean, sir,) larfed,
an’ said, “Don’t yer b’lieve any sich rot! D’yer think Gawd ’ud go an’
_kidnap_ all ’Is people like that?”[1]
[1] At a Bible-Reading in Malvern in the house of one of God’s
choicest saints, Miss Ann Boobbyer, where the precious truth of
“_The Rapture_” was being unfolded, a minister present, who was
much used of God, as an evangelist, started up, and cried,
“What! My Lord coming to _Kidnap_ all His people? Never! Never!
I’ll not believe that!”
Ralph Bastin would have smiled, at any other time, at this curious
reply. But, to-night, his soul was too sobered. Gathering up the sheets
of M.S.’s, he clipped them together, stamped them with Hammond’s
mechanical imprimatur, and handed the sheaf to the lad, giving him
instructions to deliver them in the Composing Room.
As the lad left the room, he sat back in his chair, and tried to think
out the position of affairs. He had hardly settled himself down, before
the messenger boy returned.
“’Scuse me, sir,” the lad began, “but summat curious hev ’appened.
There’s two ‘holy Joes,’ in the Composing room, an’ one in the Sterio
room—leastways, they oosed to be—an’ they’s all three bunked off,
somewheres, nobody seed ’em go, an their coats an’ ’ats is ’ung hup where
they ussally is, an’ some o’ the chaps says as they’s translated. Alf
Charman, one o’ the comp’s, oosed to talk like Mr. ’Ammond did, sir——”
The boy looked a trifle fearsomely at the empty editor’s chair, as he
added.
“Mr. ’Ammond, sir, I—er—I suppose as—’e—’e aint——.”
“Mr. Hammond has gone out!” Bastin rapped out the words quite sharply.
All this talk of the missing men was getting on his nerves.
“That will do, Charley!” he added.
The lad walked slowly to the door, his eyes fixed on the placard, his
lips moving to the words, “_To-day?” “Perhaps!_”
“Coorius!” he muttered as he passed out of the room.
Ralph Bastin tried again to settle himself down for a quiet think.
Suddenly he started to his feet, wild of eye, and with horror in his face.
“Viola?” he muttered. “My beautiful little Viola? She has talked
continuously of the Christ of late. Has she been——?”
He seized his hat, and with a crushed down sob of literal fear, he rushed
away.
Outside the office he came upon a hansom. He leaped into it, shouting the
Bloomsbury address to the man.
“Drive for your life!” he yelled. “A sovereign for you if you get me
there quickly!”
The man’s horse was fresh. They rushed through the streets. Arriving
at the house, he tossed the driver his promised sovereign, and letting
himself in with his latch key, he dashed into the drawing room. It was
empty!
He was leaving the room hurriedly, when he encountered the landlady.
“Miss Viola has gone to bed, sir, she overtired herself, visiting the
sick-poor with her flowers, and all that, to-day, and she——”
“Thanks!” with a hurried nod he raced up the stairs. The child’s bedroom
was next to his own. He entered it without knocking. He was too much
agitated to stand upon ceremony.
The room was in darkness, he struck a match, laid it to the gas nipple,
then shot a quick glance at the bed. In that first glance, he saw that it
was empty. He went close up to the bed, it had been occupied, he could
see that. He thrust his hand well down under the clothes. There was faint
body warmth left in the bedding—or it seemed so to him.
“God help me?” he groaned. And two great tears fell glittering from his
eyes.
“Viola! Viola! my precious darling!” he moaned. “You were my life, my——”
His emotion choked him. He was dropping into the chair by the bedside,
when he noticed that the back and seat of the chair were strewn with the
under-clothing, which the child had evidently placed there when disrobing.
With eyes blinded with tears, he lifted the dainty garments in a pile,
and laid them on the foot of the bed. Then he dropped back into the
chair, buried his face in the pillow—the impress of the lost, beautiful
head was left in the pillow—and wept.
For five minutes he remained thus. Then rousing himself, he muttered:—“I
must play the man! and get back to the office and lay hold of things.”
He left the room, and managed to clear the house without encountering his
landlady. Lucky in finding a hansom, he had himself driven first to the
central News Agency. He wanted to find out if anything of the mystery was
generally known.
The careless-minded, light-hearted tapists, clerks and journalists, were
laughing over the few vague rumours of the translation that had reached
them.
He said nothing of what he knew, and drove on to the office.
“If the world has to go on, for a time, just as it _has_ been going, in
spite of this wonderful thing,” he muttered, “then, as acting editor of
the Courier, I had better stifle every feeling, save the professional,
and give London—England—the best morning issue under the new condition of
things.”