To Pilate, governor of Jerusalem, seated upon the ivory chair of office before the palace, came the message of his wife. He glanced down at it with some impatience, when Diomed thrust the tablets into his hand with a hurried word of explanation.
“Have thou nothing to do with that righteous man,” he read, “for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him.”
The message was signed and sealed with the signet of the Roman princess. Pilate’s pallid and heavy face whitened to the lifeless hues of the wax upon [pg 161]which the fateful words were written. Before him stood the drooping but still majestic figure of the Nazarene, robed in the purple robe of his torture and wearing the crown of thorns, a piteous sight, before which angels were vailing their shamed faces. Beyond the strong cordon of the Roman guard surged the wildest, cruelest mob of all the ages.
The governor rose to his feet slowly, and, advancing to the side of the prisoner, exclaimed in his loud, passionless voice, “Behold the man!”
Mocking laughter, furious incoherent shouts, coupled with the dreadful, insistent, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” burst out in wilder clamor.
Pilate looked forth over the sea of terrible upturned eyes, and his huge limbs trembled beneath him. Again he glanced at the pale, melancholy face of [pg 162]the prisoner. “The fellow is naught but a Jewish peasant,” he assured himself. “And after all, what use to cast Roman justice before dogs. They will have none of it.” Loudly he called for water in a basin, and in sight of them all washed his hands with spectacular solemnity, saying, “I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it!”
Back came the mocking, inhuman cry, “His blood be upon us and upon our children!”
Pilate ground his teeth in impotent rage, and, seizing Jesus roughly by the shoulder, he thrust him forward in the face of the mob. “Shall I crucify your King?” he shouted derisively.
“We have no king but Cæsar!” was the blasphemous answer. And with that word was the scroll rolled up and sealed [pg 163]with the seven seals of wrath against the day of wrath.
And they took Jesus and led him away.
On that same day Tor was again a prisoner. The wife of Pilate in real pity had commanded that the child should be comfortably entertained in the servants’ quarters until all should be over.
Diomed, to whom the carrying out of this commission was entrusted, spoke softly to the beggar in the presence of his mistress, bidding him follow. Out of sight of the lady the Greek laughed aloud in his scorn. “Here is a guest for our honorable entertainment,” he said to the chief butler. “My lady the princess hath commanded it. In which of the chambers of state shall I lodge my lord?”
[pg 164]The official sniffed his disdain. “Is it an animal?” he demanded.
“It is an animal, most sapient Clodius,” laughed Diomed. “A Jewish swine—eh?—albeit a small one. Give him food and wine, excellent Clodius, for he is chiefly bone—this animal.”
Tor ate, for he was starving; also he slept fitfully, for he was exhausted with fear and weeping. The sun shone warm and friendly from the cloudless spring heavens, and the child, lying upon a rug which one of the slaves had flung down for him, drowsily watched the ceaseless dance of young grape leaves in the soft warm wind.
The tumult without had suddenly ceased, and an ominous silence lay heavily upon the city. Tor thought lovingly of his Master in the intervals between dreams. “He has gone away [pg 165]safely with the men,” he told himself. “I shall again find him, and he will heal blind folk as before.” So drowsing and murmuring soft prayers to his invisible Father, the beggar child rested in the house of Pilate, while without the walls of the city his Master, the King, was already hanging upon the cross.
Within the great kitchens of the palace cooks were busy preparing the noonday meal; dishes and cups clattered cheerfully, and the merry voices of maidens burnishing the great wine-flagons mingled with the chirp and whir of sparrows flitting back and forth in the blue air.
Suddenly, and without warning, the bright light of the spring noon began to fail. There was no fog, no storm, but a veil of lurid darkness was drawn heavily across the sky. Doors and windows [pg 166]were thrown wide, and terror-stricken faces stared up into the threatening heavens.
Marcus, the crusty porter of the palace, stood fast in his place, his dull face blanched and terrified in the failing light. “’Tis the vengeance of the gods,” he muttered. “The Man of Nazareth was innocent!”
Servants and underlings crowded the passages in terrified groups. “Open to us, Marcus,” they cried, beating upon the doors till they trembled upon their heavy hinges. “Earthquake!” wailed a voice from without. “The gods are shaking this evil city!”
The porter drew the great bolts with tremulous haste, and with one accord all rushed into the street.
Scarcely knowing how it had befallen, the beggar child found himself on the [pg 167]street with the others, running—running he knew not whither, through empty streets which echoed his light footfalls as in the dead of night.
Somewhere, afar off, there was the tumult of a great multitude. Tor stopped to listen, then ran on, thinking of his Master, who was waiting for him in the fast-gathering darkness.
He reached a gate—which gate he knew not, but it yawned wide and unguarded. Not far away Tor could hear the frightened sobbing of women, the strong curses of terrified men, the wailing of little children, blending with the hurried trampling of myriad feet. Suddenly athwart the darkness flamed a blood-red, silent flash illumining the heavens from east to west. Against this lurid background loomed three crosses, stark and black. And now across the [pg 168]gloomy valleys sounded the sullen crash of rocks, the fall of giant trees, while the sick earth groaned aloud and trembled beneath its terrible burden.
Tor stood stock-still in the midst of the road. In that instant of frozen horror he comprehended what had happened. “Oh, my Father,” he groaned, the foundations of his childish faith reeling with the reeling earth.
And the Omnipotent Love answered this feeble cry of the least of his children, even as it answered that far-reaching, agonized appeal which was sounding forth from Calvary. And so in a moment—or an eternity—the heavens cleared and the April sun shone brightly upon the crosses with their piteous burdens, upon the terror-stricken multitudes returning to doomed Jerusalem, upon riven tombs and shattered moun[pg 169]tains, upon a little child, comforted of his Father, gazing with Christ-touched eyes upon the cross of his King.
They took away the body of Jesus before sunset, wrapping it in fine white linen and odorous spices, and laying it to rest in a garden hard by. Tor watched all, understanding little of the significance of the rock-hewn tomb, of the great stone before its door, of the Roman guard which was shortly stationed before the sealed sepulchre.
When all was finished the child returned to the city, sustained by some strange expectation which he could have explained to no one. As he would have entered the gate he came upon a woeful figure standing without and beating upon its breast. It was Chelluh, his wicked face disfigured with rage and pain. “My eyes,” he groaned. “The [pg 170]sight of that accursed cross burnt them like a devouring flame.” And so it was. And so will it ever be. He who can look upon that cross of agony without tears of love and pity, henceforth sees only the blackness of darkness. The eyes of his soul are withered.
Tor led the blind man to his old place by the gate, and fetched him his cup, his staff, and his water-gourd.
“Now go, little dog, buy me oil and wine,” cried the beggar, with one of his frightful maledictions, “and return to me quickly, for I am devoured with this flame.”
But Tor, looking upon him sorrowfully, knew that he could no more serve this evil master as in the old days. “I have done thus far for thee,” he said in his clear childish voice, “because of the King, my Master, and because of my [pg 171]Father in heaven. But I can no longer abide in thy presence. Farewell!” And with this he was gone, his naked feet making no sound upon the stones of the street.
Many days thereafter did Chelluh send forth his dolorous cry for alms in the doomed city of Jerusalem, for he lived until the terrible days of the Roman siege, perishing at last of hunger in his chosen place by the Damascus gate.
In the green garden-close, hard by Calvary, where the Roman guard paced ceaselessly back and forth before that silent tomb, Tor lingered, unnoticed and unafraid as the birds that flitted among the branches of the blossoming trees. It comforted him to be near the resting-place of his Master; and the lusty life of the young summer sent vague thrills of expectancy through his brown limbs, as [pg 172]he lay upon the warm earth watching the shifting leaf-shadows playing upon the sealed door of the sepulchre, and the slow-moving figures of the guard clad in the scarlet and gold of imperial Rome.
Toward midnight of the second night, when the great passover moon rode high in the heavens and the garden slept in its silver light like the garden of a dream, the child slept, too, held in the soft clasp of a vision which laid cool fingers of delight on his drowsy lids. When he awoke he lay for a full minute staring into the branches of the olive-tree above his head. The gray-green leaves were all alive with a tremulous motion in the fresh morning breeze; a newly-awakened bird trilled softly somewhere in the depths of the garden; the aromatic breath of serried lilies swept his cheek like a caress. It was happiness [pg 173]to have slept—to be once more awake. Then he remembered.
The Roman guard had disappeared; this much Tor perceived at a single glance. A second searching stare told him much more: the door of the tomb gaped wide, beside it stood a young man clad in white garments.
Tor approached this radiant figure unafraid. “Where is the man who opens eyes?” he asked quite simply, for the empty tomb appeared nothing strange to the child newly emerged from his healing dreams.
“He is not here,” the young man made answer, with grave sweetness. “He is risen, as he said. Behold he goeth before you into Galilee; there shalt thou see him.”
Tor opened wide eyes of rapture upon the angel. “My Master is alive!” he [pg 174]whispered to himself. “I shall see him.”
He turned as if in a dream, his naked feet making no sound as he brushed, light as the dawn, past the ranks of lilies. There was a woman yonder. She was weeping with a smothered sound of long-drawn sobs. Tor laughed softly in his joy. “He is alive!” he repeated under his breath.
Then he saw with wonder that the woman was no longer alone. She was speaking to the Risen One, her voice wrenched with sobbing: “Sir, if thou hast borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.”
The child’s Christ-touched eyes knew him though the woman did not. He sank to his knees, his face shining with the dazzling light of the new day.
To Peter, broken in spirit, bowed down with the shame of his thrice-repeated denials, sleepless with torturing memories of his dead Master, came Mary of Magdala at dawn of the first day of the week. “They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb,” she sobbed, “and I know not where they have laid him.”
Peter arose at that word and girded his garments about him that he might run swiftly to the spot. He had no thought of what he should do, but a blind anguish of desire to serve the [pg 176]Master he had scorned drove him forth like a scourge.
He scarce noticed that John, the beloved disciple, was with him, running evenly at his side. Then some murmured word of that other disciple brought a faint memory of words spoken and straightway forgotten, words of painful prophecy, of unearthly hope, which he himself had rejected with scorn and impatience. The Galilean faltered, lagged behind. And so it came to pass that John was first to reach the open tomb.
The rosy light of the new day shone softly into the shadowy sepulchre, revealing the rough-hewn walls, the shallow niche wherein the body had lain, the folded cere-cloths, the scattered spices. The place was fragrant, bright, mysteriously empty.
[pg 177]Peter stared in at the small, still, empty place, those half-awakened memories stirring strangely within him. “When I have arisen from the dead,” he murmured half unconsciously. Had the Master indeed uttered those strange words, or was his brain touched with some sweet madness? He turned to John. The eyes of the beloved disciple were fastened upon the empty niche, his lips moved as in prayer.
With sudden, hard-won resolution Peter entered the tomb, stooping to look more closely at the chill, empty bed with its array of fair linen and odorous spicery. He noticed with an awed tightening of the throat that the fine linen napkin which had been wound about the dead man’s head was not lying with the other cerements, but was folded carefully apart, as if the wearer, sitting upon [pg 178]the edge of his couch, had placed it there with a tender thought of the giver.
His bewildered, grief-stricken eyes met the look of dawning hope in the eyes of the other. “He is not here,” murmured John, “he is risen!” And on a sudden his face became radiant with angelic beauty.
Then the two went away in wondering silence to their own house, and as they went they met other women of their company who told them of angels waiting within the tomb with that question which still sounds in ears grief-sealed against the truth of Omnipresent Life: “Why seek ye the living among the dead? Go, tell his disciples and Peter, He goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said unto you.”
To Galilee, therefore, after certain days of growing hope and marvelous [pg 179]vision, the disciples journeyed in great numbers, and with them went a certain small lad, of a joyous and shining face, no longer a homeless beggar of Jerusalem, but a brother beloved because he had looked upon the King in the beauty of his resurrection body.
It was one of the women, called Salome, who first came upon the child as he walked slowly toward Jerusalem in the dawning day. The little lad was chanting softly to himself the words he had learned on the day of his healing: “Hosanna! Hosanna in the highest! Blessed—blessed is he that cometh in the name of the King!”
“Why dost thou sing, child?” asked the woman querulously. She was still bearing the burden of spicery which she had fetched to the empty tomb, and her eyes were red with weeping and anxiety.
[pg 180]“I sing,” answered Tor, “because my Master, the King, is alive. He opened my eyes, which were blind as night, and with these eyes have I seen him—alive! Therefore, I sing.”
The woman shook her head sorrowfully, for the thing was yet too wonderful for her understanding. “I have seen the empty tomb,” she said. “Also I beheld a young man clad in white garments, who declared to us that he was alive; but I know not what to think. How can it be that he is alive when he was dead—crucified—pierced with a spear?” And again she wept bitterly.
“I saw him,” said Tor simply,—“the man who opened my eyes. He is alive. I am going to Galilee to see him.” And once more the child cried, “Hosanna!” with a clear, jubilant voice.
“Whose child art thou, little one?” [pg 181]said the woman, marveling at the brightness of his eyes, which, indeed, shone like the eyes of the angel at the empty tomb. “And where dost thou live?”
“I have a Father in heaven,” said Tor, “and once I had a master who was blind and a beggar; but him I serve no longer, since I serve only the King who gave me my eyes.”
And when, by dint of questioning the lad, the woman found that he was without kindred and alone in the world, she took him to her own house.
And so it happened that Tor traveled with that great concourse of disciples who went to Galilee to keep the tryst with their risen Lord.
Again Tor met Peter, the Galilean. It was on this wise: the child, enchanted with the beauty of the lake, wandered upon the shore at evening, his eyes wist[pg 182]fully following the fishermen as they put out one after another upon the radiant water. “I should like to sail away in a boat,” murmured Tor to himself.
He looked up to find the eyes of Peter fixed upon him. “How camest thou hither, small one?” asked the fisherman.
“I came from Jerusalem with the woman who is called Salome,” answered Tor. “I am come to see my Master, who was dead and is alive again. Already I have seen him. And I shall again see him. Perhaps,” he added timidly, “he is there.” The child’s small finger pointed to the lake, which glowed like a sea of lambent fire in the dying light.
“Once he came to us walking upon the water,” said the fisherman thoughtfully. After a little his eyes wandered to his boats, drawn high and empty upon [pg 183]the shore. There were others of his old comrades near at hand, and to these Peter presently called out with something of his old energy: “I go a fishing,” he said.
They answered, “We also go with thee.”
And so the boat was made ready, with nets and lanterns, and rough fisher’s gear for possible wild weather in the night watches. Tor watched the preparations with shining eyes. When all was at length finished he bowed himself before Peter after his old mendicant’s fashion. “I pray thee, honorable Galilean, that I also may go fishing,” he said timidly.
Peter stared down at him in some perplexity. “What is it that brings thee ever athwart my path, small one?” he asked, not unkindly. “In Jerusalem [pg 184]thou wast verily like my shadow—and now, thou wilt fish.”
“I want to see my Master, the King,” answered Tor. “He is there.” Again the small finger pointed to the darkening lake and the solemn blue mountains beyond. “It is so beautiful he will be there,” he repeated softly.
“Come, then,” said Peter, and, catching up the little lad, he stowed him snugly in the bow of the great clumsy fishing-craft amid a pile of nets.
Through stretches of moonlit water, where the breeze rippled keenly, in the dark lee of swelling hills, now anchored, now drifting slowly under the winking stars, the fishermen bent to their work. And through the long hours Tor lay quite still in the place where he was bid, speaking to no one, but wrapped in a dream of perfect delight, which the men [pg 185]busied with their fruitless fishing could scarce have understood.
When, now, the darkest hour, that comes before dawn, was already past, and the white mist that shrouded sea and shore and drifted light as thistle-down upon the glassy surface of the nearer water began to glow with rose and amber tints of dawn, Tor wriggled his lithe little body from its nest of coats and stood upright in the bow. His great bright eyes were fixed upon the wavering curtains of the mist. “Listen!” he cried suddenly, in his clear, shrill voice.
A long, level ray from the rising sun burst through the vanishing clouds and rested full upon the land not many furlongs distant.
“Look!” cried the child again, and pointed with his finger.
[pg 186]Some one—a man—was standing upon the pebbly shore looking out over the water. The fishermen rubbed their tired eyes and stared.
“Children, have ye aught to eat?” A clear, human voice brought the little cheerful question across the narrowing space.
“No,” shouted the fishermen, satisfied that the friendly voice belonged to some wayfarer, curious as ever to know the luck of an all-night fishing expedition.
“Cast the net on the right side of the boat and ye shall find,” came the answer.
“Perchance he sees the ripple of a shoal,” muttered Peter, and heaved the great net for another cast.
And now the net sank with its weight of struggling fish. Two of the men leaped hastily into the small boat to [pg 187]secure the catch, but Peter and John were gazing past the heaving net at that solitary figure upon the shore.
“It is the Lord,” whispered John. And Peter, with a smothered cry of love and longing, girt his fisher’s coat about him and flung himself into the water.
Upon the shore burned a fire of coals, and upon it sputtered a great fish, giving forth appetizing odors to the cool morning air. Beside the fire were piled loaves such as the common people were wont to use with this broiled fish. It was all quite homely and natural, yet the hands that busied themselves with that simple, satisfying meal bore the mark of the nails.
The fishermen stood with bowed heads, no one daring to ask the question which trembled on every lip.
“Come and break your fast,” said [pg 188]their mysterious host, smiling upon their awe-stricken silence. And he took the bread and the fish and gave them to eat.
So when they had broken their fast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, lovest thou me more than these?”
Peter answered in a half whisper, “Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee.”
Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”
He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, lovest thou me?”
Again Peter answered with an anguished glance of entreaty, “Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee.”
Again came the command, “Feed my sheep.”
He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, lovest thou me?”
Then Peter burst into a great passion [pg 189]of weeping, and wept as on the night he had denied his Master. “Lord,” he cried out, “thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee!”
Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.” Other words spake he also which they that heard forgot no more either in time or in eternity.
Thus did Peter, the Galilean, who was also called Simon, son of John, answer his Master three times by Gennesaret water; and thus was the bitter memory of his three denials purged from his soul. Verily he loved much, and was therefore forgiven much. And to the end of his days he remembered right well both to cherish the lambs committed to his care by the Upper Shepherd, and to tend and feed the sheep both in fold and in pasture.
So it was that he no more spoke care[pg 190]lessly or slightingly to the little lad, Tor, but, counting him as a special charge from his risen Lord, he became to him even as a father.
And Tor, growing into manhood, learned many things both strange and beautiful from the world’s page; but he found nothing there to blot out the memory of the Man who had opened his eyes. To the end he followed the King, his Master, and Jesus, long since received into the visible heavens over Galilee, yet remained with him, a sweet and satisfying presence.
The End.