Page:Hell-Bent fer Heaven (Hughes 1924).pdf/165

Rh

Let ’em revile me! I don’t keer! Let ’em persecute me, lie about me, crucify me! I don’t keer what they do! Fer verily I say unto you it ’ll be better fer Sodom an’ Gomorrow on the day o’ Jedgment than fer them! [He looks at and  significantly.] An’ that day ain’t as fur off as it has been! If I ’us a mind to I could tell you things that ’ld curdle your blood an’ dry up the marrer in your bones!

[Credulously]

Have you seen a vision, Rufe?

[Rolls his eyes mystically toward ]

What I’ve seen I’ve seen! He that hath years to hear let him hear! [He pauses and gazes about him impressively in the fashion of one “possessed of the Spirit”] An’, lo, there wus a great earthquake! An’ the sun become black as sackcloth o’ hair an’ the moon become as blood! An’ the stars o’ heaven fell into the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs when she is a-shaken of a mighty wind! An’ the heavens parted as a scroll when it is rolled together! An’ every mountain an’ island were moved out o’ their places! An’ the kings o’ the earth, an’ the great men, an’ the