The Devil's Motor: A Fantasy

In the dead midnight, at that supreme moment when the Hours that are past slip away from the grasp of the Hours yet to be, there came rushing between Earth and Heaven the sound of giant wheels,—the glare of great lights,—the stench and the muffled roar of a huge Car, tearing at full speed along the pale line dividing the Darkness from the Dawn.

And he who stood within the Car, steering it straight onward, was clothed in black and crowned with fire; large bat-like wings flared out on either side of him in woven webs of smoke and flame, and his face was white as bleached bone. Like glowing embers his eyes burned in their cavernous sockets, shedding terrific glances through star-strewn space,—and on his thin lips there was a frozen shadow of a smile more cruel than hate,—more deadly than despair.

“On!” he cried—“Still on! On with an endless rush and roar! Over the plains of the world that is gone,—over the heights of the world to come—on, still on! Without pause, without pity, without love, without regret! Follow me, all ye Forces which are destined to work the ruin of Mankind,—follow! On, on, over all beauty, all tenderness, all truth I ride,—I, the Avenger, the Destroyer, the Torturer of Souls, the Arch-enemy of God! The Kingdom of Hell grows wide and deep,—praise be to Man who makes it! I count up my growing possessions in the ever-breeding spawn of human lust and avarice,—I breathe and live and rejoice in the poison-vapours of human Selfishness! The men of these latter days are my food and sustenance,—the women my choice morsels, my dainty delicates! Brute beasts and blind, they snatch at every lie I offer them;—rejecting Eternal Life, they choose Eternal Death,—verily they shall have their reward! Like a blight my Spirit shall encompass them!—and whosoever would scour the air and scorch the earth must run on the straight road of his desire with Me!”

The great Car flashed along with grinding, thunderous wheels, and as it flew, vast Phantom-forms followed it, like rolling clouds jagged with the lightning,—the fairness of the world grew black, and sulphureous flames quenched all sweetness from the air.

[Illustration: A huge Car, tearing at full speed along the pale line dividing the Darkness from the Dawn....]

The forests dropped like broken reeds,—the mountains crumbled into pits and quarries, the seas and rivers, the lakes and waterfalls dried up into black and muddy waters, and all the land was bereft of beauty. In the place of wholesome green fields and leafy woods, there rose up gigantic cities, built in on every side, and bristling with thousands upon thousands of chimneys belching forth sickening smoke into the overhanging gloom which hid the skies; and the cities were full of a deafening noise and crashing confusion as of ten million hammers beating incessantly—beating away all peace, all solitude, all health, all rest.

On,—on, and into these countless prisons of stone and mortar the Demon of the Car swept vast and ever-hurrying crowds of human beings, with the furious force of a mighty whirlwind sweeping dead leaves into the sea.

“No room to breathe—no time to think—no good to serve!” he cried—“Now shall you forget that God exists! Now shall you all have your own wild way, for Your way is My way! Now shall you resolve yourselves back to an embryo of worms and apes, and none shall rescue you, no, not one! For the Seven Angels of the Judgment Day are sounding their trumpets of terror, and who shall silence their Voices, or stay the thunderings and lightnings, or the great earthquake?

“Hail and fire!—and the trees, and the green grass burnt up and destroyed!—the sun and the moon, the day and the night smitten into one blackness! We will have no more virtues!—no more hopes of Heaven! Honour shall be as a rag on a fool’s back, and Gold shall be the pulse of Life! Gold, gold, gold! Fight for it, steal it!—pile it up, hoard it, count it, hug it, eat it, sleep with it, die with it! Lo, I give it to you in millions, packed down and pressed together in full & overflowing measure—I scatter it among you even as a destroying rain!