The Mark of the Beast Part 15

He watched the procession sweep through the great gate-way of the Emperor's Palace. Then, when the last of the guests had pa.s.sed in, the huge folding gates closed, and the mult.i.tudes began to disperse.

The vast bulk of the people were lodged _out_side the city, and now poured out through the gates--for, with the practical re-building of the city, the exits had been made very numerous.

Bullen was lodging with a Christian Syrian about half-a-mile outside the city. He moved on in a line with one of the exodus streams.

As he cleared the city, he became conscious that just ahead of him there was a great and ever increasing gathering of people--a mighty throng, in fact. Arriving at the fringe of the crowd which grew closer and closer, as well as greater, every moment, he was amazed to see two very striking looking Easterns, clothed in sackcloth, and standing high upon a mound of stone. The appearance of the two men was extraordinary. The face of the elder of the two was cast in a wonderful mould.

George Bullen was fairly well versed in the facial characteristics of all the known races--_past_ as well as present. But this man's face bore no relation to any type he had ever seen depicted. Eastern, it was, it is true, but unlike, and more beautiful than anything he knew of. The calm of it was wondrous, and George involuntarily found himself saying over: "Thou wilt keep him in _perfect peace_ whose mind is stayed on Thee," and instantly there flashed upon him, in connection with that word, one other: "Enoch _walked with G.o.d_, and was not, for G.o.d took him."

"He might be Enoch returned to earth," he told himself.

The other man was a different specimen. His features were strongly Jewish marked. There was a fierceness of eye, a power for a blazing wrath in his deep-set orbs. Not that the first man's eyes and face were incapable of fiery indignation, but they gave indication of having been schooled by long intercourse with the divine keeping power of the G.o.d of Peace.

The men were evidently preachers--prophet-preachers. They spoke alternately, their voices clear, far-reaching, their tones perfectly natural--there was no raising of the voice--yet reaching as far as the farthest listener.

Their message was a Testimony to G.o.d, to His power, His might, His Holiness, even to His mercy. They told of judgments, near at hand, upon all who would not cleave to G.o.d in righteousness. Then in deeply solemn tones, they spoke of the presence of the "Mark of the Beast,"

upon the persons of so many thousands of the people, and warned all who would not discard the badge, and throw over their allegiance to Apleon,--"The Anti-christ--that they would presently share in the awful destruction which should overtake Anti-christ and his followers."

A roar, savage and full as from ten thousand lions, with the snarl of wolves in it, greeted this last part of the testimony, while a thousand throats belched forth the cry:

"Down with them! murder them!"

There was a savage rush towards the sackclothed prophets. But though the mult.i.tude of would-be murderers swept over, around, and past the mound on which the two faithful witnesses had been standing, and though they did not _see_ them disappear, yet they were not found.

"_And when they shall have completed their Testimony, the Beast that cometh up out of the abyss shall make war with them, and overcome them, and kill them--._"

"Yes," mused George Bullen, "when they have completed their Testimony,"

and not an hour, or a day before. For these are evidently G.o.d's two faithful witnesses, Enoch and Elijah, the only two men who never pa.s.sed through mortal death, and hence are the only two saints who can become G.o.d's witnesses, in this hideous Anti-christ time, for, as witnesses, they must be slain in the streets of the city of Jerusalem--"_where also their Lord was crucified_."

There was much angry talk, and savage swearing among the enraged, mystified, disappointed mult.i.tude, at the loss of their vengeance upon the witnesses, but, had they known it, they had come off very lightly in being only disappointed, for G.o.d's witnesses had the power "_when any one willed to injure them, to send forth fire out of their mouths, and to devour their enemies_," and in the days that were to follow this first encounter with them, the mult.i.tude would learn this to their cost.

CHAPTER X.

A LEBANON ROSE.

With the disappearance of the two witnesses there came a gradual darkening of the heavens, until in the s.p.a.ce of a couple of minutes, the whole district became as dark as it had been when the sacrifice in the Temple courtyard had finished.

Thunder and lightning accompanied the darkness, and this time heavy rain. Baffled by the darkness, the mult.i.tude ran hither and thither, aimlessly, wildly, in search of their homes. Presently the vivid lightning flashes gave them fitful direction, and gradually the crowds melted away.

George Bullen had swerved from his homeward way, to reach the crowd about the "two witnesses." The gleaming lightning gave him his direction now. He was already drenched to the skin, for the rain was a deluge.

As he moved on through the black darkness, (illumined only with the occasional lightning flashes) he stumbled over something. Some instinct told him it was a human form. Stooping in the blackness, and groping with his hands, he made out that the form was that of a slender woman. There was no movement, and in response to his question, "are you hurt?" there came no reply.

The face, the lips which he touched with his groping fingers, were warm, so that he knew it was not death, though the form was as still as death.

"Whoever she is," he mused, "she will die in this storm if she is left here." So he stooped and gathered the drenched form up in his arms.

Her head fell upon his breast, her limbs were nerveless in his clasp.

Another, a longer, a more vivid flash of lightning, came at this instant, and showed him his path clearly, he was close to his lodgings.

Two minutes later he had reached the door of the house. It was on the latch, and he entered with his burden. He found his way to his room, laid the warm, breathing form down upon a rug upon the floor, and lit the lamp.

By the light of the lamp he saw that the poor soul he had rescued, was a sweet-faced Syrian girl, by whose side he had found himself standing on the evening before, when he had stood in the throng on the Temple mount. They had exchanged a few words of ordinary tourist-interchange, and he had been surprised to find that she could speak good English, though with a foreign accent.

But realizing now that she needed immediate attention, if she was to be saved from taking a chill, he lit a tiny hand-lamp and carrying it with him to light his way, he went in search of the woman of the house.

As recorded on an earlier page, the people with whom he had found lodgment were Christian Syrians--a husband and wife.

He went all over the premises, but though he shouted several times, neither the husband or wife answered or appeared. There was no sign of them anywhere.

"They were probably caught, as I was, in the storm," he told himself, as he returned to where he had left the rain-soaked Syrian girl.

He had a bottle of mixture, which he always carried on Eastern travel, as a preventive of chill. He poured out a little of the warming stuff, and raising the unconscious girl he poured a few drops through her parted lips.

She drank by mere instinct. He repeated the experiment, and she caught her breath sharply as she swallowed the second draught. A faint sigh escaped her, her eyelids trembled, and, a moment more they unclosed.

At first her gaze was unseeing, then slowly she took in his anxious face. "Where--am--I?" she murmured brokenly.

"You are safe, and with friends!" he replied. "I stumbled over you in the road, you had fallen, somehow, in that dreadful thunder-storm."

Her eyes met his, and for one long instant she seemed to be searching his face. Then a weak, little smile trembled about her mouth, as she said:

"We met last night--I remember I thought how _true_ your face was--I can trust you, I know."

A sigh, more of content than aught else, escaped her, and he felt how she let herself rest more fully in his supporting arm. He gave her another sip of the cordial, and she thanked him as some sweet child might have done.

For a moment she lay silent and still, then she spoke again, in a vague, speculative way, as though she was searching her mind for the clue:

"Ah, yes, I remember now. The great darkness came on, after those good men of G.o.d had spoken. And the crowd got frightened and ran hither and thither,--to find their homes, I suppose--and in the darkness some rushed against me, knocked me down, and--and--"

She shuddered, as she added, "I believe some others kicked me and trampled upon me, and--"

"Are you hurt?" he cried anxiously. "Do you feel as if any bone was broken, anywhere?"

She smiled back into his anxious face: "Hurt? not much! Certainly no bones are broken. But I feel bruised and sore, and--so--"

She s.h.i.+vered, as she added: "so cold!"

He awoke to the immediate necessity for her to get out of her wet clothes, and gently lifting her until she stood upon her feet, he said:

"Can you stand alone, do you think?"

"Let go your hold," she answered, "and I will see."

Very reluctantly George released his hold of her, though his eyes were anxious, and his hands were stretched out within reach of her, lest she should give way.