FullReads

In the Judgment Hall the two apostles crouched to pray, and they were stirred by Satan laying his hands on their shoulders.

“Prayers are useless here, my friends,” said the Devil. “We must proceed with the business. I am just as anxious as you are that everything reaches a satisfactory conclusion.”

“I object,” said Ben. “Solemnly object. I don’t know this infidel. I don’t want to know him.”

“Go from here,” Towy gruntled. “A sweat is in my whiskers. Inhabitants, why isn’t his tongue a red-hot poker?… Well, boys Palace, grand this is. Say who you are?” he asked one whose face shone like a mirror. “Respected Towy-Watkins am I.”

He whose face shone like a polished mirror answered that he was Moses the Keeper of the Balance. “The Lord is in the Cloud,” he said.

Towy addressed the Cloud, which was the breadth of a man’s hand, and which was brighter than the golden halo of the throne: “Big Man, peep at your helper. Was not I a ruler over the capel? Religious were my prayers.”

“I did not hear any,” said God.

“Mistake. Mistake. Towy bach eloquent was I called. Here am I with the Speech, and the Speech is God and God is the Speech. Take you as a great gift this nice hymn-book.”

“What are hymns?” asked God.

“Moses, Moses,” cried Towy, “explain affairs to Him.”

God spoke: “Satan, render your account of the mischief you made these men do.”

“This is a travesty of the traditions of the House,” said Ben. “Traditions that are dear to me, being taught them at my mother’s knees. I refuse to be drenched in Satan’s froth. Against one who was a member of the Government you are taking the evidence of the most discredited man in the universe–the world’s worst sinner.”

He ceased, because Satan had begun to read; and Satan read rapidly, with shame, and without pantomime, not pausing at what times he was abused and charged with lying; and he read correctly, for the Records Clerk followed him word by word in the Book of the Watchers; and for every sin to which he confessed Moses placed a scarlet tablet in the scale of wickedness.

“I will attend to what I have heard,” said the Lord when Satan had finished. “Put your tablets in the scale and go into the Chamber.”

Ben and Towy withdrew, and as they passed out they beheld that the scale of scarlet tablets touched the ground.

Then the Cloud vanished and God came out of the Cloud.

“My wrath is fierce,” He said. “Bind these Welsh and torment them with vipers and with fire in the uttermost parts of Hell. They shall have no more remembrance before me.”

“Will you destroy the just?” asked Moses.

“They have chosen.”

“Shall the godly perish because of the godless?”

“I flooded the world,” said God.

“The righteous Noah and his house and his animals you did not destroy. And you repented that you smote every living thing. May not my Lord repent again?”

“I am not destroying every living thing,” God replied. “I am destroying the vile.”

“Remember Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot’s wife and his daughters. They all sinned after their deliverance. The doings of Sodom stayed.”

Moses also said: “You gave your ear to Jonah from the well of the sea.”

“I sacrificed my Son for man.”

“And loosed Satan upon him.”

“Is scarlet white?” asked God.

“Is justice the fruit of injustice? The two men were not of the Church, and the Church may be holy in your sight.”

“I have judged.”

“And your judgment is past understanding,” said Moses, and he sat at the Balance.

The servants of the Lord spoke one with another: “I cannot eat of the supper,” said one; “The songs will be as a wolf’s howlings in the wilderness,” said another; “The honey will be as bittersweet as Adam’s apple,” said a third. But Satan exclaimed: “Come, let us seek in the Book of the Watchers for an act that will turn Him from His purpose.”

In seeking, some put their fingers on the leaves and advised Moses to cry unto the Lord in such and such a manner.

“My voice is dumb,” replied Moses.

Satan presently astonished the servants; he took the book to the Lord. “My Lord,” he said, “which is the more precious–good or evil?”

“Good,” said the Lord.

“More precious than the riches of Solomon is a deed done in your name?”

“Yes.”

“Though the sins were as numerous as the teeth of a shoal of fish?”

“So. Unravel your riddle.”

“An old woman of the Dissenters,” said Satan, “claimed four tablets, whereas her deeds were nine.”

God looked at the Balance and lo, the scale of white tablets was heavier than the scale of scarlet tablets.

“Bid hither the apostles,” He commanded the Overseer, “for they shall see me, and this day they and their flocks shall be in Paradise.”

Satan stood before the face of Moses, glowing as the angels; and he brought out scissors to clip off the fringe of his beard. When he had cut only a little, the Overseer entered the Judgment Hall, saying: “The two apostles tricked Jude and crawled under the barrier, and they shot back the bolts of the gate of the Chariot House and called a charioteer to take them to Heaven. ‘This is God’s will,’ they said to him.”

Satan’s scissors fell on the floor.