The chapel was flooded by the dull scarlet light that filtered through
the lowered blinds; and through the fissure between the last blind and
the sash a shaft of wan light entered like a spear and touched the
embossed brasses of the candlesticks upon the altar that gleamed like
the battle-worn mail armour of angels.
Rain was falling on the chapel, on the garden, on the college. It would
rain for ever, noiselessly. The water would rise inch by inch, covering
the grass and shrubs, covering the trees and houses, covering the
monuments and the mountain tops. All life would be choked off,
noiselessly: birds, men, elephants, pigs, children: noiselessly
floating corpses amid the litter of the wreckage of the world. Forty
days and forty nights the rain would fall till the waters covered the
face of the earth.
It might be. Why not?
--HELL HAS ENLARGED ITS SOUL AND OPENED ITS MOUTH WITHOUT ANY LIMITS--
words taken, my dear little brothers in Christ Jesus, from the book of
Isaias, fifth chapter, fourteenth verse. In the name of the Father and
of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
The preacher took a chainless watch from a pocket within his soutane
and, having considered its dial for a moment in silence, placed it
silently before him on the table.
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