A Vision of Judgment

I.

Bru-a-a-a.

I listened, not understanding.

Wa-ra-ra-ra.

"Good Lord!" said I, still only half awake. "What an infernal shindy!"

Ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra Ta-ra-rra-ra.

"It's enough," said I, "to wake----" and stopped short. Where was I?

Ta-rra-rara--louder and louder.

"It's either some new invention----"

Toora-toora-toora! Deafening!

"No," said I, speaking loud in order to hear myself. "That's the Last
Trump."

Tooo-rraa!

II.

The last note jerked me out of my grave like a hooked minnow.

I saw my monument (rather a mean little affair, and I wished I knew who'd
done it), and the old elm tree and the sea view vanished like a puff of
steam, and then all about me--a multitude no man could number, nations,
tongues, kingdoms, peoples--children of all the ages, in an amphitheatral
space as vast as the sky. And over against us, seated on a throne of
dazzling white cloud, the Lord God and all the host of his angels. I
recognised Azrael by his darkness and Michael by his sword, and the great
angel who had blown the trumpet stood with the trumpet still half raised.

III.

"Prompt," said the little man beside me. "Very prompt. Do you see the
angel with the book?"

He was ducking and craning his head about to see over and under and
between the souls that crowded round us. "Everybody's here," he said.
"Everybody. And now we shall know--

"There's Darwin," he said, going off at a tangent. "_He'll_ catch it!
And there--you see?--that tall, important-looking man trying to catch the
eye of the Lord God, that's the Duke. But there's a lot of people one
doesn't know.

"Oh! there's Priggles, the publisher. I have always wondered about
printers' overs. Priggles was a clever man ... But we shall know now--even
about him.

"I shall hear all that. I shall get most of the fun before ... _My_
letter's S."

He drew the air in between his teeth.

"Historical characters, too. See? That's Henry the Eighth. There'll be a
good bit of evidence. Oh, damn! He's Tudor."

He lowered his voice. "Notice this chap, just in front of us, all covered
with hair. Paleolithic, you know. And there again--"

But I did not heed him, because I was looking at the Lord God.

IV.

"Is this _all_?" asked the Lord God.

The angel at the book--it was one of countless volumes, like the British
Museum Reading-room Catalogue, glanced at us and seemed to count us in the
instant.

"That's all," he said, and added: "It