hands in ecstasy, and tears streamed down her face. "I, too, am
going," she cried. "God's voice calls me."

Whereupon Krister Larsson and his wife said, almost in the same
breath: "It cries into my ear that I must go. I can hear God's
voice calling me!"

The call came to one after another, and with it all anguish of mind
and all feeling of regret vanished. A great sense of joy had come
to them. They thought no more of their farms or their relatives;
they were thinking only of how their little colony would branch out
and blossom anew, and of the wonder of having been called to the
Holy City.

The call had now come to most of them. But it had not yet reached
Halvor Halvorsson; he was wrestling in anguished prayer, thinking
God would not call him as He had called the others. "He sees that I
love my fields and meadows more than His word," he said to himself.
"I am unworthy."

Karin then went up to Halvor and laid her hand upon his brow. "You
must be still, Halvor, and listen in silence."

Halvor wrung his hands so hard that the joints of his fingers
cracked. "Perhaps God does not deem me worthy to go," he said.

"Yes, Halvor, you will be let go, but you must be still," said
Karin. She knelt down beside him and put her arm around him. "Now
listen quietly, Halvor, and without fear."

In a few moments the tense look was gone from his face. "I hear
I hear something far, far away," he whispered.

"It is the harps of angels announcing the presence of the Lord,"
said the wife. "Be quite still now, Halvor." Then she nestled very
close to him--something she had never done before in the presence
of others.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, clapping his hands. "Now I have heard it. It
spoke so loudly that it was as thunder in my ears. 'You shall go to
my Holy City, Jerusalem,' it said. Have you all heard it in the
same way?"

"Yes, yes," they cried, "we have all heard it."

But now old Eva Gunnersdotter began to wail. "I have heard nothing.
I can't go along with you. I'm like Lot's wife, and may not flee
the wrath to come, but must be left behind. Here I must stay and be
turned into a pillar of salt."

She wept from despair, and the Hellgumists all gathered round to
pray with her. Still she heard nothing. And her despair became a
thing of terror. "I can't hear anything!" she groaned. "But you've
got to take me along. You shan't leave me to perish in the lake of
fire!"

"You must wait, Eva," said the Hellgumists. "The call may