y darkness.

"Surely this is death," he thought. After that he was alone. And presently
from far away he heard the booming of a bell, deep and slow, sepulchral, as
it measured off his life. Another silence followed, and this time it was
more profound; and with a breathless awe he knew that all the people who
had ever lived on earth were before him in the void to which he himself was
drifting: people of all nations, of countless generations reaching back and
back and back to the beginnings of mankind: the mightiest family of all,
that had stumbled up through the ages, had slaved and starved and dreamed
and died, had blindly hated, blindly killed, had raised up gods and idols
and yearned for everlasting life, had laughed and played and danced along,
had loved and mated, given birth, had endlessly renewed itself and handed
on its heritage, had striven hungrily to learn, had groped its way in
darkness, and after all its struggles had come now barely to the dawn. And
then a voice within him cried,

"What is humanity but a child? In the name of the dead I salute the
unborn!"

Slowly a glow appeared in his dream, and once again the scene had changed.
The light was coming from long rows of houses rising tall and steep out of
a teeming city street. And from these lighted houses children now came
pouring forth. They filled the street from wall to wall with a torrent of
warm vivid hues, they joined in mad tempestuous games, they shouted and
they danced with glee, they whirled each other 'round and 'round. The very
air seemed quivering. Then was heard the crash of a band, and he saw them
marching into school. In and in and in they pressed, till the school seemed
fairly bursting. Out they came by another way, and went off marching down
the street with the big flag waving at their head. He followed and saw the
street divide into narrower streets and bye-ways, into roads and country
lanes. And all were filled with children. In endless multitudes they
came--marching, marching, spreading, spreading, like wide bobbing fields of
flowers rolling out across the land, toward a great round flashing sun
above a distant rim of hills.

The sun rose strangely dazzling. It filled the heavens with blinding light.
He felt himself drawn up and up--while from somewhere far behind he heard
the cry of Deborah's child. A clear sweet thrill of happiness came. And
after that--we do not know.

For he had left his family.

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