Part 5 (1/2)

He murmured something far down in his throat, and at the inarticulate sound, Hampson, who had been bowing with a flush of grat.i.tude to Mary, turned in alarm.

He saw a strange sight, and though he--in common with many others--was to become accustomed to it in the future, he never forgot his first impression.

Joseph's head had sunk back against the cus.h.i.+ons of the cab. His mouth was open, the jaw having fallen a little, as though he had no control of it.

In a flash the terrible thought came to the journalist that his friend was in the actual throes of death.

Then, in another second or two, just as the block in the traffic ceased, and the cab moved on again, he knew that Joseph lived. The eyes which at first were dark and l.u.s.treless--had seemed to be turned inward, as it were--suddenly blazed out into life. Their expression was extraordinary.

It appeared to Hampson as if Joseph saw far away into an illimitable distance. So some breathless watcher upon a mountain-top, who searched a far horizon for the coming of a great army might have looked. A huge eagle circling round the lonely summit of an Alp might have such a strange light in its far-seeing eyes.

At what was the man looking? Surely it was no narrow vision bounded by the bricks and mortar, the busy vista of the London Strand!

Then, in a flash, the journalist knew.

Those eyes saw no mortal vision, were not bounded by the material circ.u.mstance of place and time. They looked into the future.

It was thus that Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah looked when the word of the Lord came to him.

Unconsciously Hampson spoke a verse from Holy Writ:--

”Then the Lord put forth His hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put My words in thy mouth.”

Then Joseph began to speak, and never had his friend heard a man speak in this fas.h.i.+on.

The lips moved very little. The fixed far-off light remained in the eyes, the face did not change with the word's as the face of an ordinary man does.

”I hear a voice; and the voice says to me, 'Thou therefore gird up thy loins and arise, and speak unto them all that I command thee: be not dismayed at their faces, lest I confound thee before them.' The words, which seemed to come from a vast distance, though they were very keen, vibrant and clear, dropped in tone, and ceased for a moment. Then once more they began--

”And I see the woman Mary and the one that was with her. They are with me upon an hill-top. And they are as maids that have forgotten their ornaments, and as brides that have not remembered their attire. And below us I see great cities and busy markets, the movements of mult.i.tudes, and the coming and going of s.h.i.+ps. And I see that the maid and I and those others who are with us upon the mountain pray to G.o.d.

And G.o.d touches my mouth, and I go down from the hill and those that are with me, to root out, to pull down and destroy, and to throw down, to build and to plant.”

Trembling with eagerness and excitement, Hampson listened to these extraordinary words.

Ever since the black hour when he had been rescued from the consequences of his sudden madness, the journalist had known that there was something very wonderful about his friend. Hampson could not in justice to himself blame himself for his attempt at suicide. He knew that he had not been responsible for what he did. The long privations of his life, the sudden accident to Joseph in the Whitechapel Road, had been too much for a sensitive and highly-strung nature. Gradually but surely reason had been temporarily undermined, and Hampson had only a very slight remembrance of the events in the fortnight which had preceded his attempt. It was in the hospital, after the careful nursing and the generous food, that his brain was restored to its balance. And it was in the hospital also that Mary Lys had told him of the strange and supernatural occurrence that had saved his life.

”Nurse,” he had said to her, ”I know nothing of what you tell me. I was mad--quite unconscious of what I did. But I have always known that there was something about my dear friend that tells me that he is not as other men are. He is a man set apart, though for what end I do not know, and cannot foresee. But one thing I plainly know and recognize--the Almighty Father chose Joseph to be the medium by which I was saved. G.o.d moves in a mysterious way, but he has destined my friend for wonderful things.”

Mary Lys had agreed with her patient.

”I also have a prescience,” she had said, ”that Joseph has a work to do for G.o.d. He does not know it. He cannot realize it. He has made no submission to the Divine Will, but nevertheless he will be an instrument of It. I know with a strange certainty that this is his high destiny.”

The rapid and vivid remembrance of all this went through Hampson's brain as a bullet goes through a board, when he heard Joseph's last words.

He caught him by the hand, holding the long, wasted fingers in his own, chafing them to bring back some living warmth into their icy coldness.

The strange voice ceased finally, and Joseph closed his eyes. The rigid tension of his face relaxed and a little color came back into it.

Then he gave a long sigh, shuddered and once more opened his eyes.

”I feel unwell,” he said, in faint and hesitating tones. ”I saw our dear, kind nurse in a carriage with another lady. We were all stopped by a block in the traffic, weren't we? I saw Nurse Mary, and then I can remember nothing more. I have been in a faint. I did not know I was still so weak.”