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CHAPTER XII The Voice in the Wilderness CLAYTON WAS QUIETLY SITTING in his law-office, looking over and arranging some papers necessary to closing his business. A colored boy brought in letters from the mail. He looked them over rapidly; and, selecting one, read it with great agitation and impatience. Immediately he started, with the open letter crushed in his hand, seized his hat, and rushed to the nearest livery-stable. "Give me the fastest horse you have—one that can travel night and day!" he said. "I must ride for life or death!" And half an hour more saw Clayton in full speed on the road. By the slow, uncertain, and ill-managed mail-route, it would have taken three days to reach Canema. Clayton hoped, by straining every nerve, to reach there in twenty-four hours. He pushed forward , keeping the animal at the top of his speed; and, at the first stage-stand, changed him for a fresh one. And thus proceeding along, he found himself, at three o'clock of the next morning, in the woods about fifteen miles from Canema. The strong tension of the nervous system, which had upheld him insensible to fatigue until this point, was beginning slightly to subside. All night he had ridden through the loneliness of pine-forests, with no eye looking down on him save the twinkling, mysterious stars. At the last place where he had sought to obtain horses, everything had been horror and confusion. Three were lying dead in the house, and another was dying. All along upon the route, at every stopping-place, the air had seemed to be filled with flying rumors and exaggerated reports of fear and death. As soon as he began to perceive that he was approaching the plantation, he became sensible of that shuddering dread which all of us may remember to have had, in slight degrees, in returning home after a long absence, under a vague expectation of misfortune, to which the mind can set no definite limits. When it was yet scarcely light enough to see, he passed by the cottage of Old Tiff. A strange impulse prompted him to stop and make some 371 372 DRED inquiries there, before he pushed on to the plantation. But, as he rode up, he saw the gate standing ajar, the door of the house left open; and, after repeated callings, receiving no answer, he alighted, and, leading his horse behind him, looked into the door. The gloaming starlight was just sufficient to show him that all was desolate . Somehow this seemed to him like an evil omen. As he was mounting his horse, preparing to ride away, a grand and powerful voice rose from the obscurity of the woods before him, singing, in a majestic, minor-keyed tune, these words: "Throned on a, cloud our God shall come, Bright flames prepare his way; Thunder and darkness, fire and storm, Loud on the dreadful day!'n Wearied with his night ride, his nervous system strained to the last point of tension by the fearful imageswhich filled his mind, it is not surprising that these sounds should have thrilled through the hearer with even a superstitious power. And Clayton felt a singular excitement, as, under the dim arcade of the pine-trees, he saw a dark figure approaching. He seemed to be marching with a regular tread, keeping time to the mournful music which he sung. "Who are you?" called Clayton, making an effort to recall his manhood. "I?" replied the figure, "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness! I am a sign unto this people of the judgment of the Lord!" • Our readers must remember the strange dimness of the hour, the wildness of the place and circumstances, and the singular quality of the tone in which the figure spoke. Clayton hesitated a moment, and the speaker went on: "I saw the Lord coming with ten thousand of his saints! Before him went the pestilence, and burning coals went forth at his feet! Thy bow is made quite naked, O God, according to the oaths of the tribes! I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction, and the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble!"2 Pondering in his mind what this wild style of address might mean, Clayton rode slowly onward. And the man, for such he appeared to be, came out of the shadows of the wood and stood directly in his path, raising his hand...

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