A Second Coming
I
The Tales which were Told
CHAPTER I
THE INTERRUPTED DINNER
He stood at the corner of the table with his hat and overcoat on, just as he had rushed into the room.
'Christ has come again!'
The servants were serving the entrees. Their breeding failed them. They stopped to stare at Chisholm. The guests stared too, those at the end leaning over the board to see him better. He looked like a man newly startled out of dreaming, blinking at the lights and glittering table array. His hat was a little on one side of his head. He was hot and short of breath, as if he had been running. They regarded him as a little bewildered, while he, on his part, looked back at them as if they were the creatures of a dream.
'Christ has come again!'
He repeated the words in a curious, tremulous, sobbing voice, which was wholly unlike his own.
Conversation had languished. Just before his entrance there had been one of those prolonged pauses which, to an ambitious hostess, are as a sound of doom. The dinner bade fair to be a failure. If people will not talk, to offer them to eat is vain. Criticism takes the place of appetite. Amplett looked, for him, bad-tempered. He was leaning back in his chair, smiling wryly at the wineglass which he was twiddling between his fingers. His wife, on the contrary, sat very upright- with her an ominous sign. She looked straight in front of her, with a tender softness in her glance which only to those who did not know her suggested paradise. Over the whole table there was an air of vague depression, an irresistible tendency to be bored.
Chisholm's unceremonious entry created a diversion. It filliped the atmosphere. Amplett's bad temper vanished on the instant.
'Hollo, Hugh! thought you weren't coming. Sit down, man; in your coat and hat if you like, only do sit down!'
Chisholm eyed him as if not quite certain that it was he who was being spoken to, or who the speaker was. There was that about his bearing which seemed to have a singular effect upon his host. Amplett, leaning farther over the table, called to him in short, sharp tones:
'Why do you stand and look like that? What's the matter?'
'Christ has come again!'
As he repeated the words for the third time, there was in his voice a note of exultation which was in odd dissonance with what was generally believed to be his character. The self-possession for which he was renowned seemed to have wholly deserted him. Something seemed to have shaken his nature to its depths; he who was used to declare that life could offer nothing which was of interest to him.
People glanced at each other, and at the strange-looking man at the end of the table. Was he mad or drunk? As if in answer to their glances he stretched out his hands a little in front of him, saying:
'It is true! It is true! Christ has come again! I have come from His presence here to you!'
Mrs. Amplett's voice rang out sharply:
'Hugh, what is the matter with you? Are you insane?'
'I was insane. Now I am wise. I know, for I have seen. I have been among the first to see.'
There was something in his manner which affected them strangely. A wildness, an exultation, an intensity! If it had not been so entirely out of keeping with the man's everyday disposition it might not have seemed so curious. But those who knew him best were moved most. They were aware that his nerves were not easily affected; that something extraordinary must have occurred to have produced this bearing. Clement Fordham rose from his chair and went to him.
'Come, Hugh, tell me what's wrong outside.'
He made as if to slip his arm through Chisholm's, who would have none of it. He held Fordham off with hand extended.
'Thank you, Fordham, but for the present I'll stay here. I am not mad, nor have I been drinking. I'm as sober and as sane as you.'
A voice came down the table, Bertie Vaughan's. In it there was a ring of laughter:
'Tell us, Chisholm, what you've seen.'
'I will tell you.'
Chisholm removed his hat, as if suddenly remembering that he had it on. He rested the brim against the edge of the table, looking down the two rows of faces towards Amplett at the end. Mrs. Amplett interposed:
'Hadn't you better sit down, Hugh, and have something to eat? The entrees are getting cold. Or you might tell your story after we've finished dinner. Hunger magnifies; wonders grow less when one has dined.'
There was a chorus of dissentient voices.
'No, no, Mrs. Amplett. Let him tell his story now.'
'I will tell it to you now.'
The hostess gave way. Chisholm told his tale. He riveted his auditors' attention. The servants listened openly.
'I walked here. As you know, the night is fine, and I thought the stroll would do me good. As I was passing through Bryanston Square a man came round the corner on a bicycle. The road has recently been watered, and is still wet and greasy. His tyre must have skidded, or something, because he entirely lost control of his machine, and went dashing into the hydrant which stands by the kerb. He was moving pretty fast, and as it came into contact with the hydrant his machine was splintered, and he was pitched over the handle-bar heavily on to his head. He was some fifteen or twenty yards from where I was. I went to him as rapidly as I could, but by the time I reached him he was already dead.'
'Dead!'
The word came in a sort of chorus from half a dozen throats.
'Dead,' repeated Chisholm.
'Are you sure that he was dead?'
The question came from Amplett.
'Certain. He was a very unpleasant sight. He must have fallen with more violence even than I had supposed. His skull was shattered. He must have come down on it on the hard road, and then twisted over on to his back. He was a big, heavy man, and the wrench which he had given himself in rolling over had broken his neck. I was so astonished to find him dead, and at the spectacle which he presented, that for a second or two I was at a loss as to what steps I ought to take. No other person was in the square, and, so far as I could judge, the accident had not been witnessed from either of the windows. While I hesitated, on a sudden I was conscious that someone was at my side.'
He stopped as if to take breath. There came a rain of questions.
'Someone? What do you mean by someone?'
'I will try and tell you exactly what I saw. It is not easy. I am yet too near-fresh from the Presence.'
He clasped his hands a little more tightly on the brim of his hat, then closed his eyes for a second or two, opening them to look straight down the table, as if endeavouring to bring well within the focus of his vision something which was there.
'I was looking down at the dead man as he lay there in an ugly heap, conscious that I was due for dinner, and wondering what steps I ought to take. I felt no interest in him-none whatever; neither his living nor his dying was anything to me. My chief feeling was one of annoyance that he should have chosen that moment to fall dead right in my path; it was an unwarrantable intrusion of his affairs into mine. As I stood, I knew that someone was on his other side, looking down at him with me. And I was afraid-yes, I was afraid.'
The speaker had turned pale-the pallor of fear had come upon the cheeks of the man whose imperturbable courage had been proved a hundred times. His voice sank lower.
'For some moments I continued with eyes cast down; I did not dare to look up. At last, when my pulse grew a little calmer, I ventured to raise my eyes. On the other side of the dead bicyclist was one who was in the figure of a man. I knew that it was Christ.'
He spoke with an accent of intense conviction, the like of which his hearers had never heard from the lips of anyone before. It was as though Chisholm spoke with the faith which can move mountains. Those who listened