Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 1.pdf/304

Rh For a moment the Angel stood staring. Then in a flash he saw it all, saw this grim little world of battle and cruelty transfigured in a splendour that outshone the Angelic Land, suffused suddenly and insupportably glorious with the wonderful light of love and self-sacrifice. He gave a strange cry, and before any one could stop him, was running towards the burning building. There were cries of "The Hunchback! The Fowener!"

The Vicar, whose scalded hand was being tied up, turned his head, and he and Crump saw the Angel, a black outline against the intense, red glare of the doorway. It was the sensation of the tenth of a second, yet both men could not have remembered that transitory attitude more vividly had it been a picture they had studied for hours together. Then the Angel was hidden by something massive (no one knew what) that fell, incandescent, across the doorway.

was a cry of "Delia" and no more. But suddenly the flames spurted out in a blinding glare that shot upward to an immense height, a blinding brilliance broken by a thousand flickering gleams like the waving of swords. And a gust of sparks, flashing in a thousand colours, whirled up and vanished. Just then and for a moment, by some strange accident a rush of music, like the swell of an organ, wove into the roaring of the flames.

The whole village standing in black knots heard the sound, except Gaffer Siddons who is deaf—strange 272