THE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS.
Clayton was quietly sitting in his law-office, looking over and
arranging some papers necessary to closing his business. A colored boy
brought in letters from the mail. He looked them over rapidly; and,
selecting one, read it with great agitation and impatience. Immediately
he started, with the open letter crushed in his hand, seized his hat,
and rushed to the nearest livery-stable.
"Give me the fastest horse you have--one that can travel night and day!"
he said. "I must ride for life or death!"
And half an hour more saw Clayton in full speed on the road. By the
slow, uncertain, and ill-managed mail-route, it would have taken three
days to reach Canema. Clayton hoped, by straining every nerve, to reach
there in twenty-four hours. He pushed forward, keeping the animal at the
top of his speed; and, at the first stage-stand, changed him for a fresh
one. And thus proceeding along, he found himself, at three o'clock of
the next morning, in the woods about fifteen miles from Canema. The
strong tension of the nervous system, which had upheld him insensible to
fatigue until this point, was beginning slightly to subside. All night
he had ridden through the loneliness of pine-forests, with no eye
looking down on him save the twinkling mysterious stars. At the last
place where he had sought to obtain horses, everything had been horror
and confusion. Three were lying dead in the house, and another was
dying.
All along upon the route, at every stopping-place, the air had seemed to
be filled with flying rumors and exaggerated reports of fear and death.
As soon as he began to perceive that he was approaching the plantation,
he became sensible of that shuddering dread which all of us may remember
to have had, in slight degrees, in returning home after a long absence,
under a vague expectation of misfortune, to which the mind can set no
definite limits. When it was yet scarcely light enough to see, he passed
by the cottage of Old Tiff. A strange impulse prompted him to stop and
make some inquiries there, before he pushed on to the plantation. But,
as he rode up, he saw the gate standing ajar, the door of the house left
open; and, after repeated callings, receiving no answer, he alighted,
and, leading his horse behind him, looked into the door. The gloaming
starlight was just sufficient to show him that all was desolate. Somehow
this seemed to him like an evil omen. As he was mounting his horse,
preparing to ride away, a grand and powerful voice rose from the
obscurity of the woods before him, singing, in a majestic, minor-keyed
tune, these words:--
"Throned on a cloud our God shall come,
Bright flames prepare his way;
Thunder and darkness, fire and storm,
Lead on the dreadful day!"
Wearied with his night ride, his nervous system strained to the last
point of tension by the fearful images which filled his mind, it is not
surprising that these sounds should have thrilled through the hearer
with even a superstitious power. And Clayton felt a singular excitement,
as, under the dim arcade of the pine-trees, he saw a dark figure
approaching. He seemed to be marching with a regular tread, keeping time
to the mournful music which he sung.
"Who are you?" called Clayton, making an effort to recall his manhood.
"I?" replied the figure, "I am the voice of one crying in the
wilderness! I am a sign unto this people of the judgment of the Lord!"
Our readers must remember the strange dimness of the hour, the wildness
of the place and circumstances, and the singular quality of the tone in
which the figure spoke. Clayton hesitated a moment, and the speaker went
on:--
"I saw the Lord coming with ten thousand of his saints! Before him went
the pestilence, and burning coals went forth at his feet! Thy bow is
made quite naked, O God, according to the oaths of the tribes! I saw the
tents of Cushan in affliction, and the curtains of the land of Midian
did tremble!"
Pondering in his mind what this wild style of address might mean,
Clayton rode slowly onward. And the man, for such he appeared to be,
came out of the shadows of the wood and stood directly in his path,
raising his hand with a commanding gesture.
"I know whom you seek," he said; "but it shall not be given you; for the
star, which is called wormwood, hath fallen, and the time of the dead is
come, that they shall be judged! Behold, there sitteth on the white
cloud _one_ like the Son of Man, having on his head a golden crown, and
in his hand a sharp sickle!"
Then, waving his hand above his head, with a gesture of wild excitement,
he shouted:--
"Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the
earth, for her grapes are fully ripe! Behold, the wine-press shall be
trodden without the city, and there shall be blood even to the horses'
bridles! Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the
trumpets of the other angels, which are yet to sound!"
The fearful words pealed through the dim aisles of the forest like the
curse of some destroying angel. After a pause, the speaker resumed, in a
lower and more plaintive tone:--
"Weep ye not for the dead! neither bewail her! Behold, the Lamb standeth
on Mount Zion, and with him a hundred and forty and four thousand,
having his Father's name written on their foreheads. These are they
which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth; and in their mouth is
found no guile, for they are without fault before the throne of God.
Behold the angel having the seal of God is gone forth, and she shall be
sealed in her forehead unto the Lamb."
The figure turned away slowly, singing, as he made his way through the
forest, in the same weird and funereal accents; but this time the song
was a wild, plaintive sound, like the tolling of a heavy bell:--
"Ding dong! dead and gone!
Farewell, father!
Bury me in Egypt's land,
By my dear mother!
Ding, dong! ding, dong!
Dead and gone!"
Clayton, as he slowly wound his way along the unfrequented path, felt a
dim, brooding sense of mystery and terror creeping over him. The tones
of the voice, and the wild style of the speaker, recalled the strange
incident of the camp-meeting; and, though he endeavored strenuously to
reason with himself that probably some wild and excited fanatic, made
still more frantic by the presence of death and destruction all around,
was the author of these fearful denunciations, still he could not help a
certain weight of fearful foreboding.
This life may be truly called a haunted house, built as it is on the
very confines of the land of darkness and the shadow of death. A
thousand living fibres connect us with the unknown and unseen state; and
the strongest hearts, which never stand still for any mortal terror,
have sometimes hushed their very beating at a breath of a whisper from
within the veil. Perhaps the most resolute unbeliever in spiritual
things has hours of which he would be ashamed to tell, when he, too,
yields to the powers of those awful affinities which bind us to that
unknown realm.
It is not surprising that Clayton, in spite of himself, should have felt
like one mysteriously warned. It was a relief to him when the dusky
dimness of the solemn dawn was pierced by long shafts of light from the
rising sun, and the day broke gladsome and jubilant, as if sorrow,
sighing, and death, were a dream of the night. During the whole
prevalence of this fearful curse, it was strange to witness the
unaltered regularity, splendor, and beauty, with which the movements of
the natural world went on. Amid fears, and dying groans, and wailings,
and sobs, and broken hearts, the sun rose and set in splendor, the dews
twinkled, and twilight folded her purple veil heavy with stars; birds
sung, waters danced and warbled, flowers bloomed, and everything in
nature was abundant, and festive, and joyous.
When Clayton entered the boundaries of the plantation, he inquired
eagerly of the first person he met for the health of its mistress.
"Thank God, she is yet alive!" said he. "It was but a dream, after all!"