The Valley of Vision | Page 3

tumults and discords, as if the tower were shaken and the bells gave out their notes at hazard, in surprise and trepidation.
It stopped as suddenly as it began. The great bell of the hours struck twelve. The windows of the cathedral glowed faintly with a light from within.
"It is New Year's Eve," I thought--although I knew perfectly well that the time was late summer. I had seen that though the leaves on the trees of the square were no longer fresh, they had not yet fallen.
I was certain that I must go into the cathedral. The western entrance was shut. I hurried to the south side. The dark, low door of the transept was open. I went in. The building was dimly lighted by huge candles which flickered and smoked like torches. I noticed that one of them, fastened against a pillar, was burning crooked, and the tallow ran down its side in thick white tears.
The nave of the church was packed with a vast throng of people, all standing, closely crowded together, like the undergrowth in a forest. The rood-screen was open, or broken down, I could not tell which. The choir was bare, like a clearing in the woods, and filled with blazing light.
On the high steps, with his back to the altar, stood Man, his face gleaming with pride.
"I am the Lord!" he cried. "There is none above me! No law, no God! Man is power. Man is the highest of all!"
A tremor of wonder and dismay, of excitement and division, shivered through the crowd. Some covered their faces. Others stretched out their hands. Others shook their fists in the air. A tumult of voices broke from the multitude--voices of exultation, and anger, and horror, and strife.
The floor of the cathedral was moved and lifted by a mysterious ground-swell. The pillars trembled and wavered. The candles flared and went out. The crowd, stricken dumb with a panic fear, rushed to the doors, burst open the main entrance, and struggling in furious silence poured out of the building. I was swept along with them, striving to keep on my feet.
One thought possessed me. I must get to my wife and child, save them, bring them out of this accursed city.
As I hurried across the square I looked up at the cathedral spire. It was swaying and rocking in the air like the mast of a ship at sea. The lace-work fell from it in blocks of stone. The people rushed screaming through the rain of death. Many were struck down, and lay where they fell.
I ran as fast as I could. But it was impossible to run far. Every street and alley vomited men--all struggling together, fighting, shouting, or shrieking, striking one another down, trampling over the fallen--a hideous melee. There was an incessant rattling noise in the air, and heavier peals as of thunder shook the houses. Here a wide rent yawned in a wall--there a roof caved in--the windows fell into the street in showers of broken glass.
How I got through this inferno I do not know. Buffeted and blinded, stumbling and scrambling to my feet again, turning this way or that way to avoid the thickest centres of the strife, oppressed and paralyzed by a feeling of impotence that put an iron band around my heart, driven always by the intense longing to reach my wife and child, somehow I had a sense of struggling on. Then I came into a quieter quarter of the town, and ran until I reached the lodging where I had left them.
They were waiting just inside the door, anxious and trembling. But I was amazed to find them so little panic-stricken. The little girl had her doll in her arms.
[Illustration with caption: The cathedral spire... was swaying and rocking in the air like the mast of a ship at sea.] "What is it?" asked my wife. "What must we do?"
"Come," I cried. "Something frightful has happened here. I can't explain now. We must get away at once. Come, quickly."
Then I took a hand of each and we hastened through the streets, vaguely steering away from the centre of the city.
Presently we came into that wide new street of mean houses, of which I have already spoken. There were a few people in it, but they moved heavily and feebly, as if some mortal illness lay upon them. Their faces were pale and haggard with a helpless anxiety to escape more quickly. The houses seemed half deserted. The shades were drawn, the doors closed.
But since it was all so quiet, I thought that we might find some temporary shelter there. So I knocked at the door of a house where there was a dim light behind the drawn shade in one of the windows.
After a while the door was opened