Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven

“Often – sometimes in the Corsican range, sometimes in the French. He always hunts up a conspicuous place, and goes frowning around with his arms folded and his field-glass under his arm, looking as grand, gloomy and peculiar as his reputation calls for, and very much bothered because he don’t stand as high, here, for a soldier, as he expected to.”

“Why, who stands higher?”

“Oh, a lot of people we never heard of before – the shoemaker and horse-doctor and knife-grinder kind, you know – clodhoppers from goodness knows where that never handled a sword or fired a shot in their lives – but the soldiership was in them, though they never had a chance to show it. But here they take their right place, and Cæsar and Napoleon and Alexander have to take a back seat. The greatest military genius our world ever produced was a brick-layer from somewhere back of Boston – died during the Revolution – by the name of Absalom Jones. Wherever he goes, crowds flock to see him. You see, everybody knows that if he had had a chance he would have shown the world some generalship that would have made all generalship before look like child’s play and ’prentice work. But he never got a chance; he tried heaps of times to enlist as a private, but he had lost both thumbs and a couple of front teeth, and the recruiting sergeant wouldn’t pass him. However, as I say, everybody knows, now, what he would have been, – and so they flock by the million to get a glimpse of him whenever they hear he is going to be anywhere. Cæsar, and Hannibal, and Alexander, and Napoleon are all on his staff, and ever so many more great generals; but the public hardly care to look at them when he is around. Boom! There goes another salute. The barkeeper’s off quarantine now.”

Sandy and I put on our things. Then we made a wish, and in a second we were at the reception-place. We stood on the edge of the ocean of space, and looked out over the dimness, but couldn’t make out anything. Close by us was the Grand Stand – tier on tier of dim thrones rising up toward the zenith. From each side of it spread away the tiers of seats for the general public. They spread away for leagues and leagues – you couldn’t see the ends. They were empty and still, and hadn’t a cheerful look, but looked dreary, like a theatre before anybody comes – gas turned down. Sandy says, —

“We’ll sit down here and wait. We’ll see the head of the procession come in sight away off yonder pretty soon, now.”

Says I, —

“It’s pretty lonesome, Sandy; I reckon there’s a hitch somewheres. Nobody but just you and me – it ain’t much of a display for the barkeeper.”

“Don’t you fret, it’s all right. There’ll be one more gun-fire – then you’ll see.”

In a little while we noticed a sort of a lightish flush, away off on the horizon.

“Head of the torchlight procession,” says Sandy.

It spread, and got lighter and brighter: soon it had a strong glare like a locomotive headlight; it kept on getting brighter and brighter till it was like the sun peeping above the horizon-line at sea – the big red rays shot high up into the sky.

“Keep your eyes on the Grand Stand and the miles of seats – sharp!” says Sandy, “and listen for the gun-fire.”

Just then it burst out, “Boom-boom-boom!” like a million thunderstorms in one, and made the whole heavens rock. Then there was a sudden and awful glare of light all about us, and in that very instant every one of the millions of seats was occupied, and as far as you could see, in both directions, was just a solid pack of people, and the place was all splendidly lit up! It was enough to take a body’s breath away. Sandy says, —

“That is the way we do it here. No time fooled away; nobody straggling in after the curtain’s up. Wishing is quicker work than travelling. A quarter of a second ago these folks were millions of miles from here. When they heard the last signal, all they had to do was to wish, and here they are.”

The prodigious choir struck up, —

We long to hear thy voice,
To see thee face to face.

It was noble music, but the uneducated chipped in and spoilt it, just as the congregations used to do on earth.

The head of the procession began to pass, now, and it was a wonderful sight. It swept along, thick and solid, five hundred thousand angels abreast, and every angel carrying a torch and singing – the whirring thunder of the wings made a body’s head ache. You could follow the line of the procession back, and slanting upward into the sky, far away in a glittering snaky rope, till it was only a faint streak in the distance. The rush went on and on, for a long time, and at last, sure enough, along comes the barkeeper, and then everybody rose, and a cheer went up that made the heavens shake, I tell you! He was all smiles, and had his halo tilted over one ear in a cocky way, and was the most satisfied-looking saint I ever saw. While he marched up the steps of the Grand Stand, the choir struck up, —

“The whole wide heaven groans,
And waits to hear that voice.”

There were four gorgeous tents standing side by side in the place of honor, on a broad railed platform in the centre of the Grand Stand, with a shining guard of honor round about them. The tents had been shut up all this time. As the barkeeper climbed along up, bowing and smiling to everybody, and at last got to the platform, these tents were jerked up aloft all of a sudden, and we saw four noble thrones of gold, all caked with jewels, and in the two middle ones sat old white-whiskered men, and in the two others a couple of the most glorious and gaudy giants, with platter halos and beautiful armor. All the millions went down on their knees, and stared, and looked glad, and burst out into a joyful kind of murmurs. They said, —

“Two archangels! – that is splendid. Who can the others be?”

The archangels gave the barkeeper a stiff little military bow; the two old men rose; one of them said, “Moses and Esau welcome thee!” and then all the four vanished, and the thrones were empty.

The barkeeper looked a little disappointed, for he was calculating to hug those old people, I judge; but it was the gladdest and proudest multitude you ever saw – because they had seen Moses and Esau. Everybody was saying, “Did you see them? – I did – Esau’s side face was to me, but I saw Moses full in the face, just as plain as I see you this minute!”

The procession took up the barkeeper and moved on with him again, and the crowd broke up and scattered. As we went along home, Sandy said it was a great success, and the barkeeper would have a right to be proud of it forever. And he said we were in luck, too; said we might attend receptions for forty thousand years to come, and not have a chance to see a brace of such grand moguls as Moses and Esau. We found afterwards that we had come near seeing another patriarch, and likewise a genuine prophet besides, but at the last moment they sent regrets. Sandy said there would be a monument put up there, where Moses and Esau had stood, with the date and circumstances, and all about the whole business, and travellers would come for thousands of years and gawk at it, and climb over it, and scribble their names on it.

notes

1

The captain could not remember what this word was. He said it was in a foreign tongue.