[The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories by Mark Twain]@TWC D-Link bookThe Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories CHAPTER 8 31/36
Next we had the Flood, and the Ark tossing around in the stormy waters, with lofty mountains in the distance showing veiled and dim through the rain.
Satan said: "The progress of your race was not satisfactory.
It is to have another chance now." The scene changed, and we saw Noah overcome with wine. Next, we had Sodom and Gomorrah, and "the attempt to discover two or three respectable persons there," as Satan described it.
Next, Lot and his daughters in the cave. Next came the Hebraic wars, and we saw the victors massacre the survivors and their cattle, and save the young girls alive and distribute them around. Next we had Jael; and saw her slip into the tent and drive the nail into the temple of her sleeping guest; and we were so close that when the blood gushed out it trickled in a little, red stream to our feet, and we could have stained our hands in it if we had wanted to. Next we had Egyptian wars, Greek wars, Roman wars, hideous drenchings of the earth with blood; and we saw the treacheries of the Romans toward the Carthaginians, and the sickening spectacle of the massacre of those brave people.
Also we saw Caesar invade Britain--"not that those barbarians had done him any harm, but because he wanted their land, and desired to confer the blessings of civilization upon their widows and orphans," as Satan explained. Next, Christianity was born.
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