THERE IS a legend concerning John, the Prophet, to the effect that he lost in Ephesus, in the year 89 A.D., the first transcription of his Vision. This version was come upon by the Romans, from whom he had precipitately fled, and read by a certain Centurion before it was officially burned according to the Emperor’s orders. It is said to be a second version, written by the Prophet in hiding some twelve months later, that concludes the New Testament. Of the first and original account, only one fragment survives, John’s recollection of the “other horseman” which appears in a letter written either by, or for, the Centurion, to a poet named Marcus. The letter (if there was one) is supposed to have been lost during the persecutions of Diocletian. Thus the account was preserved only by word of mouth, although it is said to have been a favorite of Saint Leo the Great, as early as the middle of the fifth century. The Apocalyptic legend follows: After the breaking of the Fourth Seal, and after the emergence of the Pale Horseman, Death, John saw yet another horseman, now recorded as Hell, but originally given another name. This Fifth Rider went forward with the other Four, and, indeed, led them. War and Pestilence, Famine and Death scourged the world of men. These grim figures had somewhat different names in the lost Apocalypse: Conquest, Slaughter, Greed, and Universal Death, i.e., death by famine, by pestilence, by the sword, and by all human passions.
As mankind fell by a third and yet another third, and as the seas turned to blood and fiery glass, the Horseman in the Lead became nauseated by the deeds of his fellows.
He therefore pressed far ahead of them, entering every village and city with a great cry and a terrifying warning. To the rulers of each city he told of those who came hard behind him and he showed them the blood on his horse’s hooves. Then, always, he went on, for his urgency was great.
Behind him, men fell into profound arguments, some saying that he was a liar, some that the blood on the hooves was not of men but of goats, and some that he had not passed that way at all, but was only an imagining of the people. These arguments consumed much time and took many peculiar theological bents. In the end, the warning did not anywhere prevail. The Four Riders arrived and slew their three times tens of thousands.
Meanwhile, the Fifth Horseman had come to the outermost reaches of the earth and so turned about, well satisfied with his work. However, as he came upon first one and then another desolated city, anger mounted in him. When he questioned the survivors about the warning they had been given, he found them unrepentant. They did not say they had been fools to disobey the alarm. They did not say that the arrogant stupidity of their rulers had betrayed them and robbed them of their homes, their loved ones, and their birthright. Instead, in one voice, they blamed him who had carried the message. “He should have tarried longer with us and talked in a louder voice,” the weeping people cried. “He should have seen our helplessness and stayed with us to defend us,” they said.
And they said, “It is his fault; had he not come this way, the others would not have followed!”
So, because his wrath was very great, and because the truth was not in these people, the Fifth Horseman rejoined his companions. Together they slew all mankind and destroyed all their cities. And the name of him who led, and of him who warned, according to the legend, was Reality.