The Mormon Prophet Part 38

"Then the prophet stood up quite calmly and pulled out a pistol and shot at the mob until all its barrels were discharged. His firing made the men hold back, for a good number of the mob were struck. Then they came on again until the door was literally full with muskets and rifles, but I was lying on the floor below the shots, so I saw them pa.s.s over my head. The very walls were riddled with them, and the prophet stood in the midst of the shots and threw up his hands towards heaven and cried, 'O Lord, my G.o.d.' Then, not knowing what he did, he staggered to the window, dying from his wounds, and he fell outside the window, and I heard that the mob out there propped up his body and used it for a target."

Susannah rose up with clenched hands and pitiful face, but she went out of the room, leaving the two men together. "Were you injured?" asked Ephraim of the stranger.

"Well, sir, I was bruised by being trampled on, but the gaoler got hold of me and dragged me into an iron cell and locked me in, and the next morning he came and let me out."

"That was a year ago," said Ephraim. "Have you been in Nauvoo since then?"

"Yes, I went back. I wanted to know, sir, what would come, and take my share of the suffering after seeing the prophet die so courageous; but, sir, the Church is sorely divided. I didn't like to say it before your lady, for I see that she's got some one she cares for amongst us, but there's a strong party among the apostles and elders that are wors.h.i.+ppers of Baal, and are most evil in their conduct and practice, and are apostate, though they call themselves followers of the prophet.

And Mr. Brigham Young is at the head of them. It's a bad thing that the Illinois militia is set out to fight against us and turn us out of the city without mercy, but it's a sorer thing that the greater part of our people, being ignorant, will follow Mr. Brigham Young; and he's bent on going west, sir, into the heart of the Rocky Mountains, where he can set up a kingdom of his own. His teaching is against good doctrine in two respects; he says that they will wax strong there until they can avenge the blood of their brethren who have been hunted and slain, and that the elders and apostles will live like the patriarchs of old, and have many wives, in order to build up the Church."

"And has the other party in your sect no strength to resist?"

"Very little strength, sir, except that G.o.d is on the side of the righteous; but Mrs. Smith, the prophet's widow, with his sons and many hundreds of us, will not give in to the evil, but will stay in Illinois and Missouri in face of the worst that persecution can do, for it was thereabouts that the prophet said that the Holy City should be, and he gave us no word to kill and destroy our fellow-men; and although perhaps he was led away and sinned sometimes as other men do, it is a scandalous lie to say that he thought to teach wickedness and falsehood to his Church."

"I wonder," asked Ephraim within himself, "if that is true, or what strange secret that troubled soul took with him to the other side of death?"

In the evening after the stranger was gone Susannah sat with Ephraim in the old doorway. Before them, mid the harvest fields, winding over hill and dale, lay the long white road which led to the hill of Smith's early visions--the road on which Susannah had set forth with Angel Halsey on her wedding journey.

"You are a-weary, wife, to-night," said Ephraim. He smoothed the hair upon her brow. "You have exhausted yourself with long weeping, and yet--"

He did not say, "Have you reason to bemoan this man's tragic end?" for he knew that more sacred memories had caused the tears; of these some faint jealousy rose in his breast and kindness sealed his lips.

She told him the truth in very simple words such as loving women use.

"To-day I seemed to see" (she laid her hand across her knit brows) "all the pa.s.sion of it again, the wrong, the right, the misery--from the day that Angel and I went out with such young pa.s.sionate desire to divide the right from the wrong. I could see Angel and my baby shot before my eyes as Joseph Smith was shot. It is terrible to see death come that way. But they are all three lying now in the perfect peace of death."

She put her hand in his. "Then, dear, my mind came back, from the rage and terror of war. I thought of their peace and of you--how G.o.d has healed my life by your love, and given me such joy. Is he not able to provide for the healing of the nations?"

THE END.