The Rocky Island | Page 8

flames, even with the song upon their lips.
In vain did I strain my eyes to see any light at the end, as I had seen it in the garden. If it was there, the black clouds had rolled over it so thick and dark that not a ray of it was left.
Yet I heard one and another offering to lead those that would follow them, safely through this terrible wilderness; and such men never wanted followers: so I watched many of these leaders, to see what they would do for those that trusted them. Little help could any of them render. Some put their followers on a path which led straight down into the deepest and most frightful pitfalls; some set them on a path which wandered round and round, and brought them at the end back to the same place from which they started; some led them into thorny places, where the poor pilgrims pierced their bleeding feet with many a wound: but not one did I see who brought them into any better place, or took them any nearer to their journey's end.
How they found their way at all, was at first my wonder. But as I looked more closely, I saw in all their hands little lanterns, which just threw a feeble light upon the darkness round them. These were always brightest in the young, for they soon grew very dim; and the falls and blows they met with, bruised and shattered them so much, that some had hardly any glimmering left, even of the feeble light which they had seemed to cast of old.
I looked at them until my heart was very sad, for there was no peace, no safety, no hope; but all went heavily and sadly, groaning and weeping, or laughing like madmen, until, sooner or later, they seemed all to perish in the fearful pitfalls!
Then my angel-guide spoke to me again, marking my sadness, and he said, "Hast thou well observed this sight?" and I answered, "Yes." Then he said, "And wouldst thou see more?" So when I had said "yes," methought we were once more flying through the air, until again he set me on my feet, and bid me look down. Now here, too, strange noises reached my ears; but as I listened to them, I found that there were mixed with them such sounds as I had not heard before. Sweet clear voices came up now from the din, speaking, as it were from one close by me, words of faith, and of hope, and of love; and they sounded to me like the happy talking which I had heard at the first between the glorious beings in the garden.
So when my guide touched my eyes, I bent them eagerly down into the darkness below me.
At first I thought that it was the same place I had seen last, for there was a busy multitude passing to and fro; and there was music and dancing, and sobbing and crying; there were pitfalls, too, and wild beasts. But as I looked closer, I saw that, in spite of all this, it was not the place that I had seen before. Even at a glance I could see that there were many more flowers here than there; and that many amongst the pilgrims were going straight on, with happy faces, by a road which passed safely by all the pitfalls. I could see, too, that at the end of the road was a dim shining of that happy light which had been so bright in the beautiful garden.
Now, as I looked, I saw that there were but a few who kept to this straight safe road, and that many were scattered all over the plain. I saw many leave this path even as I looked upon it; and very few did I see come back to it: those who did, seemed to me to find it very hard to get into it again; whether it was that its sides were slippery, or its banks so steep, many fainted and gave up, after trying to climb into it again. But it seemed quite easy to leave it; for every one who left it went on at first lightly and pleasantly. Sometimes, indeed, they seemed greatly startled after taking their first step out of it, and some of them turned straight back, and after a few struggles, more or less, such always got into it again. But if once after this first check they set out for the plain, they seemed to go easily along, until their path lay straight by the den of some destroying beast, or led them into the midst of the pitfalls, where they wholly lost their reckoning, and knew not how to get on, or how to get back.
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