ine what the vision was
like, and helped perhaps also to understand the truth it was meant to
teach.

The Horse and the Rider are, of course, the principal figures. The
Horse is a splendid milk-white charger. Its breast is broad and
powerful. Its neck is arched proudly. It has a small but graceful
head, beautiful eyes, widely opened nostrils, and a mouth that seems to
be impatiently champing the bit. The front portion of its mane is
parted on its brow and streams back round the ears on either side. The
rest of the mane is erect on its neck. The Rider is a towering and
terrible figure. He wears a loose flowing cloak which swells around
and behind him in the wind. His left arm, strong and bare, is firmly
stretched out, and his left hand holds a thick bow in its iron grasp.
His right arm is out of sight, and only the right hand is seen, drawing
back the bowstring to his breast. At his left side there hangs a
quiver, full of arrows with feathered shafts. On his head he wears a
stately winged helmet, and above it a crown. His face wears a look of
commanding strength, and in the eyes beneath the shadow of the helmet
there is an awful gleam of fixed and pitiless resolve.

These two principal figures are closely surrounded by others. Three of
these on the left of the Horse first attract our attention. The
foremost, a dusky form, with head bent forward, and breast and
shoulders bare, leads the Horse with his right hand by the bridle rein.
Behind him, the fair face of a woman appears, framed in the folds of
the mantle that is gathered closely around her neck; and behind this
still another face is seen in the background. These three are all
marching alongside of the Horse and his Rider. Just in front of the
figure who leads the Horse there is a figure lying backwards with
closed eyes, as if in death; and on the further side of the Horse two
other lifeless faces come into view. In the lower left hand corner of
the picture, just in front of the Horse we see the bowed head and
stooping shoulders of one more dark form. All these figures, the dead
as well as the living, have bright stars on their foreheads, though the
star on the brow of the one furthest back is partly hidden by the bow.
The Rider and his companions move forward under a gloomy sky, with
angry streaks of light showing here and there between the clouds. A
wind seems to be blowing in their faces. And high up behind them great
eagles, with spreading w