The Mark of the Beast Part 3

"Get me a copy of the last edition of all the chief evening papers, Charley, and be smart about it, and perhaps you will keep the change for your smartness."

In six minutes the lad was back with a sheaf of papers. Bastin just glanced at them separately, noting the several times of their issue, then with a "Good boy, Charley! Keep the change," he unfolded one of the papers.

The boy stood hesitatingly, a moment, then said:

"Beg yer pardin', Mr. Bastin, sir, but wot's yer fink as people's sayin' 'bout the 'Translation o' the Saints,' as it's called?"

"I can't say, I am sure, Charley. The careless, and G.o.dless have already said some very foolish things relative to the stupendous event that has just taken place, and I think, for a few days, they are likely to say even more foolish things. What is the special one that you have heard?"

"Why they sez, sir--its in one o' the _h_eving peepers, they sez--that the people wot's missin' hev been carted off in aeroplanes by some o'

the other religionists wot wanted to git rid o' them, an' that the crank religiouses is all gone to----"

"Where?" smiled Bastin.

"I don't think anybody knows where, sir!"

"I do, Charley, and many others to-day, who have been left behind from that great Translation know--they have been 'caught up' into the air where Jesus Christ had come from Heaven to summon them to Himself.

"Mr. Hammond is there, Charley, and that sweet little adopted daughter of mine, whom you once asked me whether 'angels could be more beautiful than she was!'"

"Ah, yus, sir, I recollecks, sir, she wur too bootiful fur words, she wur."

There was one moment's pause, then the boy, with a hurried, "it's all dreadful confuzellin," slipped from the room.

Ralph Bastin opened paper after paper, glanced with the swift, comprehensive eye of the practised journalist at here and there a column or paragraph, and was on the point of tossing the last news-sheet down with the others, on the floor, when his eye caught the words, "Joyce, Journalist."

The paragraph recorded the finding of the body of the drunken scoundrel. "From the position of the body," the account read, "and from the nature of the wounds, it would almost seem as though some infernal power had hurled him, head on, against the wall of the room.

Whether we believe, or disbelieve the statements concerning the taking away, by some mysterious Translation process, of a number of persons from our midst, yet the fact remains that each hour is marked by the finding of some poor dead creature, under circ.u.mstances quite as tragically mysterious as this case of Joyce the reporter."

For a time Ralph Bastin sat deep in thought. He had not yet written the article for to-morrow's issue "From the Prophet's chair." He felt his insufficiency, he realized the need of being G.o.d's true witness in this hour that was ushering in the awful reign of The Antichrist. He did the _best_ thing, he knelt in prayer, crying:

"O G.o.d, I am so ignorant, teach me, give me Thy wisdom in this momentous hour. If those who cleave to Thee amid this awful time must seal their witness with death, must face martyrdom, then let me be counted worthy to die for Thee. In the old days, before yesterday's great event, all prayer had to be offered to Thee through Jesus Christ.

I know no other way, please then hear my prayer, and accept it, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen."

Rising from his knees, with a sense of solemn calm pervading all his soul, he presently took his pen and began to write rapidly, his mind seeming, to him, to be consciously under the domination of the divine.

Embodying the various items over which he had so recently mused, as to the awfulness of the development of evil that would increasingly mark the near coming days, now that all restraints were taken away, he went on to show that now that the Devil, who had, for ages, been the Prince of the Power of the air, with all his foul following of demons, had been cast down out of that upper realm, where Christ and his translated saints had taken up their abode, the forces of evil upon the earth would be magnified and multiplied a million-fold.

"Christ and the Devil," he went on, "never can dwell in the same realm, hence the coming of Christ into the air meant the descent to earth, of the Devil and, with him all the invisible hosts of evil. The wildest, weirdest imagination could not conceive all the horrors that must come upon those who presently will refuse to wear the 'Mark of the Beast'

and bow to wors.h.i.+p him."

Suddenly, at this point in his writing, a curious sense of some presence, other than his own, came over him, and slowly, almost reluctantly he looked up.

He started visibly, for, seated in the chair on the opposite side of his desk, was a visitor. The man was the most magnificent specimen of the human race he had ever seen, a giant, almost, in stature, handsome to a degree, and with a certain regal air about him.

Bastin had involuntarily leaped to his feet, and now stammered:

"I--er--beg pardon, but I did not hear you come in."

Even as he spoke two things happened. His mind swept backward over the years to the day of that wonderful Judas sermon he had heard, and with this recalled memory there came the recollection of his turning to look into the face of that magnificent looking young man who had been the cynosure of all eyes as he left the church with his mother. He was conscious also of a strange uncanny sense that this smiling handsome man, with mocking, dancing light in his eyes, was no ordinary man.

In that same instant, too, Ralph Bastin knew who his visitor was, since he had become familiarized by the ill.u.s.trated papers and magazines, with the features of "The Genius of the Age"--as he was often styled--Lucien Apleon.

"My name," said the smiling visitor, "is Lucien Apleon. As editor of a great journal like the 'Courier,' you know who I am when you know my name, even though we have never met before. You were so busy, so absorbed, when I came in that I did not so much as cough to announce my presence."

Ralph longed to ask him if he came through the door, or how, since he had heard no sound. But he did not put his question, but replied:

"Who has not heard and read of Lucien Apleon, 'The Genius of the Age,'

sage, savant, artist, sculptor, poet, novelist, a giant in intellect, the Napoleon of commercial capacity, the croesus for wealth, and master of all courts and diplomacy. But I had not heard that you were in England, the last news _par'_ of you which I read, gave you as at that wonderful city, the New Babylon, more wonderful, I hear, than any of the former cities of its name and site."

Ralph had talked more than he needed to have done, but he wanted time to recover his mental balance, for his nerves had been considerably startled by the suddenness, the uncanniness of his visitor's appearance.

There was a curious quizzical, mocking look in the eyes of Apleon while Ralph was speaking. The latter noted it and had an uncomfortable consciousness that the mocking-eyed visitor was reading him like a book.

"I only landed to-day," replied Apleon.

"Steamer?" asked Ralph.

"No, by a new aerial type of my own invention," replied Apleon. "It brought me from Babylon to London in about as many minutes as it would have occupied the best aeronaut, days, by the best machines of a year ago."

He laughed. There was a curious sound in the laugh, it was mocking yet musical, it was eerie yet merry. Involuntarily Ralph thought of Grieg's "Dance of the Imps," and Auber's overture "Le Domino Noir."

"But I have not yet explained my object in calling upon you," the visitor went on. "I have, of course, seen this morning's 'Courier,'

and have been intensely interested, and, will you mind, if I say it, amused."

"Amused, Mr. Apleon?" cried Ralph.

"Yes, intensely amused," went on the mocking-eyed visitor. "I do not mean with the issue as regards its general contents, it was to the 'Prophet's Chair' column that I alluded."

Ralph, regarding him questioningly, inclined his head, without speaking.

"Do you really believe, Mr. Bastin," went on the visitor, "what you have written in that column? Do you really believe that a certain section of Christians, out of every one of the visible Evangelical churches of this land, and elsewhere, have been translated into the air? That the Holy Spirit of the Christian New Testament, the third Person of the Trinity, whom that same New Testament declares was sent to the earth when the Nazarene Christ went home to His Father--please, note, Mr. Bastin, that I am using the terms of the orthodox Christian, enough I tell you frankly I do not believe a word of the jumble which, for nearly two thousand years, has been accepted as a divinely inspired Revelation to so-called fallen man?"

"Yes," replied Ralph, and his voice rang with a rare a.s.surance, and every line of his face held a wondrous n.o.bility. "Yes, I believe it all. If I had not been a blind, conceited fool of a sinner, a week ago, I should have known that all this, and much more was true, and I should have found my way in penitence and faith to the feet of the Nazarene, of Jesus Christ the World's Redeemer, and, finding pardon for my sin, as I should have done, I should have been made one of the Church of G.o.d, as my friend, and Editor-in-chief, Tom Hammond, had done. And, had I listened to him, I should now have been with those blessed translated ones of whom I have written in that article of which you speak, Mr. Apleon.

"I sat in that chair where you now sit," Ralph went en. "Mr. Hammond, in his eagerness to win me to Christ, leant forward over this desk--he was sitting where I am--to lay his hand on my wrist, when, with angry impatience, I leaped to my feet, and declaring that he must be going out of his head, I swung round on my heel.

"Instantly there fell upon the room an eerie stillness. I swung back on my heel to reply to my friend, but his chair was empty, he was gone--gone to the Christ whom he loved, 'caught up in the air' to meet his Lord, where all those other missing saints have been taken.

"Yes, yes, Mr. Apleon, a thousand times yes, to your question, 'do I believe all that I have written there in that article.' Here in this little pamphlet--" He laid his hand, as he spoke, upon a small book that had been Tom Hammond's, which bore the t.i.tle "THE SECOND COMING OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. Systematically arranged from pa.s.sages in the Holy Scriptures, for Students, Teachers, and others. By the Rev.

Robert Middleton."

"Here, in this little book," he went on, "there is not only set out with the most luminous clearness, with the actual Bible texts, all that I have written in that article, but also many other truths and texts which have already been literally fulfilled during the last forty-eight hours--even as the book said that they would be."

With the old mocking, quizzical smile, the handsome Apleon interrupted him, asking:

"What do you mean by the _real_ Church of G.o.d? The Romish Church, The Greek Church, The Anglican Church or any one of the mult.i.tude of dissenting churches?"

It was Ralph's turn to smile now, as he said: