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.
Footnotes:
(1) The captain could not remember what this word was. He said it
was in a foreign tongue.