The Centurion's Story (MacFarlane)/Chapter 1
And now, noble Marcus, I have that to write unto you which will make those patrician eyes of thine grow big with admiration. Marcus, this day I have seen a man. Write it on thy tablets, "Sergius hath seen a man." And to thyself admit that though thou hast campaigned in Gaul and in Britain and hast chased the Scyths over the unnamed reaches beyond the northern sea, and hast thyself been chased by that fiety group of Bactrians that were once near to taking your life and mine on our most luckless campaign beyond the Assyrian River—admit it—thou hast never yet seen a man; for I swear by every god in the calendar there never was but one, and an hour ago I saw him die.
And such a place to look for a man! True, these Jews can breed a warrior, as those who fought the Maccabees would swear, but no soldier this man. A teacher, Marcus. Think of it! A preacher and wonder-worker who used not to play at arms, but at words—the guest of long-robed Pharisees at dinner, the entertainer of any wayside crowd with barbaric Hebrew syllogisms—a sort of religious Esculapius who healed the sick. Some aver, too, that even he raised the dead. If that be true, he has now a proper task to raise himself, for it is but a moment since I clamped him in a rock-hewn crypt, with the seal of Cæsar on the door.
The seal of Cæsar! I bow in reverence for our great Cæsar, our divine Tiberius. But, what folly! To put the seal of Cæsar on a tomb. I tell you I saw the blue seal of death clamp this one's lips, and do I not know that seal? Have I not seen it frame itself upon a hundred—upon a thousand—upon unnumbered men? Upon women that the sword of the ravisher cut down; upon children that starved when the invading armies had swept the country like a fire, and famine and fatigue had dried the mother's breasts? I have seen it in every stage of wasting back to nature that ensues until the separate grinning bones of hideous death are sport for dogs or habitats for worms, and I say again, what folly! What seal of Emperor or Gods is half so strong to keep a man entombed as that unturning process of the Universe that grinds life into being with pain and sorrow and grinds it out again at the last with sorrow and pain. Cæsar's seal to keep the dead dead!
But, even while I write these words and pause to scoff at man's mischance of nature, yet I tell you that if there be ever a time when Nature would rue her work upon the frame of a human being, when rocks and hills and trees and birds and glistening seas and whispering winds and booming thunders, and all the vast impeopled constitution of the universe would, with one voice, cry out "Come back, come back, oh, man! come back! and live thy life and work thy mortal will again upon us and among us," it would be for this man Jesus.
For, by the way, it is of him, Jesus the Nazarene, that I write. You know of him before from our long habit to set down each to the other the curious that we see and hear. As once I wrote you of the rumours that came to me, I thought him half a charlatan and all a fool.
To begin with, the priests like him not. He had a mind that cut like a blade, a tongue that blistered when it struck a rogue. He had more keenness to discern a rascal than any I have ever known and so the priests like him not. Blit, ye gods! the man was brave. He feared nor heaven, nor earth, nor hell, and when he loosed himself upon these priestly vultures, he made their feathers curl. I warrant you, with mere words, he singed them as a cook a fowl. Now, some loose word of his stirred up the charge that he would be a king like Cæsar, and these venomous priests came to Pilate with it. You know our worthy Governor, who, if he should read this line, would love me even less than he does, which, God wot, is little enough. Pilate would sell the blood in the veins of his Emperor at so much a measure, if thereby he might pacify the leaders of the people while he squeezed the milky fatness out of the land into his own coffers. So from Pilate, an order of arrest was easy as a prescription for sore eyes from a doctor. Those hulking cowards that call themselves the Temple Police were to make the arrest, but I am detailed with a guard to police the police.
It was done at night and quietly, not to say decently. There were two reasons for this. One was that these sneaky priests could never get up the courage to begin the enterprise in the daytime; and the other was that Pilate is a foxy old crow and knew as well as the Jews that to take the Nazarene at noon time in the heydey of his popularity with the gaping, adoring crowd around, would be to precipitate a riot and not Vulcan himself knows where a tumult among these Jews would stop. So, at night, we jostled down the dry ravine called Kedron and up the rough and tangled sides of the mountain called Olivet. Here, amid the shadowy recesses that hide themselves beneath the tangle of olive trees that cover a part of the hill it was his wont to retire at night. To the place where, all alone, he kept his tryst with the Hebrew god, Jehovah, whose representative he claimed to be, a hound called Judas, one of his own, guided us. It may have been the clank of sword upon armour, it may have been the grinding of a grieve upon a rock that revealed our presence—for we went quietly enough, you must be assured, for, of all the cowards in whose breasts fear ever grew, commend me to this sneaking bunch of Temple Priests. Whatever it was, the party heard our coming. And I, who, though in the rear, have perhaps an ear for such things, caught the quiet, masterful tones of a commander of men speaking to his followers. It was a little nook, dark as the Cave of Death itself; but suddenly we all stopped, hushed with expectancy. Just ahead of us in the shadow were the low murmuring tones that did not come from our own people. Then a trembling priest upheld high his torch before him and I saw a vision. A huddled, startled group of men for background and before them a figure—no, not a figure,—a face; yet the poise of the head, the commanding dignity of the features, the absolute mastery of the soul that stood out, and the visage upon which my eye rested, told me that there was a figure there. No ghost this. The face I could not describe since every feature seemed so complete that they blended into the one perfect character of a man. Forehead and eyes and mouth, I saw, and wavy hair flung back and beard enough, with heavy brows, but no feature stood out—all was subject unto the character, unto the face as a whole, unto the soul of the man who himself looked, subject unto nothing. My mind ran back through all the kingly souled men I have seen. Onones, the Parthian; Leontes, the Thracian, and that great German Chief, whom we saw fall in the little skirmish beyond the Danube. These three men walked through my imagination to-day with the stately majesty of gods. Not Zeus, himself, could be more kingly than they, yet there in the shadow, with only the flickering light from the torch upon his face, plus some strange luminous glow that seemed to be upon his hair and for which I could not account, was one who somehow flung these other men out of memory. There he stood in the shadow, and yet his face was light, lighter, I swear, than the combined rays of all the feeble flickering torches the cowardly priests held above him. "Whom do you seek? "he asked in that calm voice of his that seemed to me to have the strength of the Universe in its tone and timbre; and, so help me Jove! If the whole doddering bunch that were so keen to take him did not stand there with chattering teeth and husking, inarticulate words in their throats. I listened till I felt a chill go shivering through the group and then, from my place in the rear, in that disgust for the cowards which my heart felt, I answered respectfully, "We seek Jesus, the Nazarene." He took a step forward further into the circle of the lights that flickered more each minute from the cowardly trembling of those who held them, and said in that same voice of his, which reminded me now of the far-off murmur of a cataract: "I am he."
When the man uttered these words, that group of hirelings wilted to the earth in rows as if cut down by some giant sickle. Am I a coward? No, you know that I am not; but when he had finished speaking, I was on my knees. I said I was not a coward. These others fell before his glance because his eye swept them as a scorching fire, because they were arrant cowards. I fell upon my knees in admiration of the man. But while I looked, the kingliness seemed to retire. That self-assertion of a high-born majesty went back a little into the face of him. Something as though a man could do, yet would not do what he could. Once, I am told, when a woman pressed upon him in a throng for healing and touched the hem of his garment, he said, "My power goeth out from me." Now, it was as though his power went back into him from without. Even the cowards felt the change. And that sneaking hang-dog of a Judas disentangled himself from the crouching group and went forward, saying, "Master, I salute thee," and kissed him on the brow. With that the curs became very brave. They swarmed around him like jackals and began to hustle him—such treatment as I permit not to any prisoner in my charge; but before I could act, a great raw-boned giant of a Galilean had swung a rusty fish knife that he plucked from out his tunic so hard at Malchus, the cowardly leader of the cowardly pack, as to hew off an ear. For a moment, the prisoner became a king again. With one swift word, he rebuked the Galilean and forbade him to use his sword. His followers looked in amazement at this. Terror seized them. Since their Master forbade them to be brave, they, too, became cowards and disappeared in the darkness in a panic of fright. At the same moment, Jesus, himself, with a quick motion of the hand, had touched the ear of Malchus, and I, who was pressing forward at the moment, declare to you in all solemnity, Marcus, my friend and brother, that the wound upon the head of Malchus disappeared as though it had never been there.
Conquering my amazement, I brought about order, and formed the party for the march back to the Temple, leaving the priestly police in immediate charge as were my orders from Pilate.
I had thought that the dogs would lead him to the Temple where their public trials are held, but, no. After we had reached the city, they go trailing off to the house of that old he-wolf Annas, whose son-in-law Caiaphas is High Priest. Annas strutted like an ostrich, his beady old eyes sparkling with a serpentine light. The Nazarene's hands were bound behind his back but he stood beautifully erect and bore himself nobly, answering the yappings of the sanctimonious cur with boldness and dignity. One of the jackals presumed to strike him in the face, rebuking him for his answer to Annas. Then, you should have seen the Nazarene. The light came into his eyes; the colour into his cheeks and I could have sworn he was no less than a king as the mantling blush of outraged dignity mounted his temples. He fixed those orbs that seemed to blaze upon the man and said: "If I have spoken falsely, testify to it; but if truly, why do you strike me?" The man slunk from before him and Annas, seeing he could make nothing of him, bound him over to Caiaphas, his dear, sweet son-in-law, a hungrier wolf than old Annas even, if hungrier there be. This meeting at the house of Caiaphas was more public. The rumour that the prophet was in custody had spread like wildfire through the city and many of the Scribes and Pharisees and elders among the people were present. I could not make sense out of it myself, for such things are irksome to me, but I could see that they were all lying like Greek traders, and that with all their lying, he came squarely off triumphant. I wish, Marcus, you could have seen him, wearing a fine sort of dignity that was almost contempt and yet not quite, for in his face was more a look of patience and forbearance. You know our Roman contempt for weakness; and sometimes we regard forbearance as weakness, but I swear to you, this man was patient and stronger than a rock at the same time. I am not given to superstition. I have seen the inside of every priestly game that ever religious rascal has played, and my good sword has searched the heart of a trickster or two of them, but yet I grew to believe in this man as I looked at him. "Whatever else," said I to myself, "the man is no mere magician." I remembered what happened in the garden on the mountain and, by Zeus, I think he had it in his power to strike every accusing eye blind and every lying tongue dumb and yet he bided his time till the examination was almost concluded, when Caiaphas let fly some kind of question that stirred him deeply, and quick as a flash he answered something about the Son of Man and the clouds of glory. I did not catch it, perhaps, nor guess its significance, but the effect was like tossing a hornet's nest into the crowd. Those old graybeards got up on their toes and howled and uttered such foul language in religious phraseology, with clinchings of their fists and demonstrations of hatred as I did not think were possible. Old Annas, who was urging Caiaphas on, tore his tunic from top to bottom and others did likewise. The young fellow surrounded himself with such an armour of majesty as had its being in the pure essence of manhood and in his fine strong innocence, and I looked him to stare them all out of countenance and go forth a free man.
But his speech, whatever it was, set them all gnashing at him like wolves and they began to cry "Death to him, death to him." The mob circled round him, striking with clinched fists and spitting upon him. Some impudent fellow flung the corner of his own robe over his face, thus blindfolding him. Another struck him with the open palm and a third said, "If thou be Christ, prophesy who struck thee." I then shouldered my way to the centre of the mob. As the disturbance ceased with my presence, he glanced at me for a moment with a grateful eye. His fine nostrils were a-quiver and once in a while his long lashes swept his I bruised cheeks as he seemed to struggle with emotions from which his whole frame trembled. Once again, as I stood there beside him, our glances met. In his own was a look of recognition that I had done him a favour and in mine, I presume, was a look of the surprise I felt in my soul. He answered with a word: "They could have no power over me, except it were given them of my Father." Who his Father was I do not understand. At first I thought it might be some of those graybeards, but now I think not.
However, daylight had come in earnest now and I made up my mind that I would take the prisoner before Pilate and if so that he were guilty of any offense, he could be punished according to law and not harried like a quarry by the hounds. However, his enemies reached the same decision. It appeared they wanted to put him to death and they had to get a decree from Pilate before this could be done, so without my interference they hustled him away to Pilate's residence. Only I cautioned Caiaphas that if they showed the prisoner any more violence, I would take him out of their hands. Caiaphas and Annas scowled most beautifully at this, almost enough to give me warrant for knocking their heads together, a pleasure I hope to have some day.
I looked back as we went down the street towards Pilate's house and thought all Jerusalem was trailing behind us. The street was full. People were clambering over the housetops and from the lower city came that distant confused murmuring that I have heard a time or two when trouble was breeding and I felt it in my bones that some great tragedy was impending. When we came to Pilate's house, there was another halt and more wigwagging of white heads. It seemed to-day was some kind of High Day with these cattle and they would not profane their sacred garments by entering the house of a Roman. I settled their palaver in a moment by taking the prisoner away from them and marching him up on the porch. Pilate knows these Jews well. He has conned their prejudices and passions and reads them like a book, so he came down from the judgment seat where he was waiting and himself stood upon the porch beside the Jew. Annas, Caiaphas and the other jangling rabbis or scribes formed a semi-circle in front of the porch on the pavement with the crowd pressing on behind. I put me a man or two back of them with bared spears and yet could scarcely keep the crowd from flattening them against the wall. It was amazing to hear these accusers change their tune when they got before Pilate. All this prating in the houses of Annas and Caiaphas was about laws and doctrines and visions and such like trash. But, lo! they came now charging this man with being an enemy to Cæsar, setting himself up to be a king, refusing tribute and such stuff. Pilate in the meantime had sent Jesus inside while listening to their complaints. Then he strode in to talk to the man himself. I wish you could have seen the contrast. Pilate, tall, lean, chalky white of face with that fishy roving eye that sees naught but the glint of gold and those small, spiked ears of his that hear nothing but the call of spoil and loot, before the Galilean Prophet. Pilate was a full inch taller than he, but the Jew! ye gods! The soul of him stood out in all its imperial majesty. There was a calmness in his poise, a certain possessiveness in his bearing that made him, in my eye, at least, the grander and nobler for the indignities he had just suffered. "Are you king of the Jews?" said Pilate, pompously, and waited for his answer. I smiled behind my shield to see the tables suddenly turned and the prisoner with regal assurance becoming the inquisitor. "Who told you to ask me this?" he said. "Did it occur to you or did somebody suggest it?" Pilate gasped as he answered by asking contemptuously if he were a Jew. Then Jesus told him quite plainly that while he was a king, his kingdom was not of this world; that for this reason he had no military ambition and no civil interests. It was plain enough to Pilate that he was a bright, keen man, though a dreamer, with no concern except in some sort of visionary, religious teaching. For this reason, and because Pilate is always glad enough to put a crimp in the power of the priests, I saw he was determined to save the man alive. Immediately, he went out and told the Jews that he found their charges unsubstantiated. With that, they broke a new bottle of perfume on his head, charging that he had stirred up a riot in Galilee. Pilate side-stepped as quick as that wrestler we bet our sestercii on in the bout that night in Ostia when last we met. He has had a quarrel with Herod for a long time and here was a chance to get rid of a disagreeable duty and placate Herod at the same time, for Herod happened to be in Jerusalem at the birthday celebration of his brother, Agrippa, whom he loves as a weasel loves a fowl, so off he went, attended by the rabble, to Herod, You know what the Herods are like. This Antipas has more of the vices and fewer of the virtues of that Idumean brood than any other I have known. With smug assurance, Herod prepared himself to have sport with his Galilean subject, but Jesus stood before him in a silence that was dignified but for all that, contemptuous and full of merited rebuke. Herod tried in vain to get a word out of him and then had to have recourse to the cheap and vulgar use of his own brutal power, for here I could not protect but must needs obey. Under Herod's orders my own soldiers mocked and jeered at him. Snatching a purple curtain from the wall, they flung it round him like a royal robe and mocked and did obeisance after which Herod ordered him back to Pilate, still with his purple robe upon him. I thought that Pilate would have given in to the people, but I was wrong. He was still determined to save him, and after argument, sought to compromise by scourging.
Now, I have bent the lash over many a back and often with something of compassion since perhaps there is a vein of the woman in me, but by my commission from the Emperor, I swear that never did it seem a thing more pitiful. With a regal sweep of his arms, the Galilean bared his white and glistening flesh to the sting of the lash. His flesh was perhaps not more tender than another's, but the godlike beauty of his torso was such that it seemed a sin to mar it. They flung again the rough and purple robe over his bare and bleeding shoulders and from somewhere came a hastily woven crown of that little thorn bush you have seen by every Syrian roadside. Rude hands jammed it down upon his brow. A reed was placed in his hand to signify a sceptre and again the soldiers had sport with him ere Pilate was satisfied that he had done enough. The shouts and jeers and jibes of the soldiers in the court could be heard by the mob outside and, like Pilate, I would have thought it had pacified them; instead, it only seemed to fire their blood.
These Jews scoff at our gladiatorial combats. But to lash a good man unarmed, helpless, until his tender flesh is in ribbons and his full veins are empty is justice with them and Divine justice at that. Pilate himself went out again to the mob and pleaded for the life of his prisoner. He did his diplomatic best—I give the old fox credit for that, but the wolves had smelt blood; they would not be denied.
Pilate made yet one more appeal. Himself he led the prisoner out. A pool of blood had formed where he stood for the scourging. His feet were wet with it and every step he took upon the marble pavement of the Judgment Hall was stained crimson. A Roman Judgment Hall stained with the blood of a man adjudged innocent. That Roman justice which was once our boast may only be laughed at where Pilates are the judges, but anyway, there stood Pilate, his face hot and flushed and angry. With a little push, he sent the scourged man tottering forward to the baluster. The Nazarene recovered his pose instantly. There was no droop to his shoulders, no pathos in his face and no pallor on his cheeks; only a slight tightening of every line of every feature and a certain added rigidity of pose as by sheer force of an unconquerable will, he lifted himself above his pain and above his weakness and above that nausea which scourging causes and stood there, the finest figure of a man that I have ever seen. This, my Marcus, was our hero at his greatest moment; at least his greatest, up to then.
"Behold the man," said Pilate. "Know that I find no crime in him." But those bearded old women rent their skirts again and filled the air with clouds of dust which they tossed high, venting shouts and shrieks of disapprobation. "Away with him," they cried. "Crucify him! Crucify him! His blood be upon us and upon our children." Then I saw the face of Pilate change. In his mad impatience he was yielding, but the instant came a serving maid from his wife and whispered in his ear, what I know not, but a warning I am sure, with some touch of superstition in it, for the pallor of his cheek was heightened and he straightened for a moment as though one had stuck a knife in him. Again he turned and pleaded earnestly for the life of the man. It was sickening!
A Roman and a Procurator pleading with this rabble and yet, by Hercules, had I not had more spirit than Pilate to let them nag him thus, I myself would have pleaded for this noble piece of man flesh ere I had seen it tottering to the cross. I, too, would have sued upon my knees for his life, but the fiends would not be denied. Pilate grew more embarrassed. At length he called for water and a basin. The Jews clamoured. Jesus looked on. The water trickled through the Roman fingers and splattered on the pavement, washing out the stain of one of the Nazarene's footsteps. Pilate, too, was seeking to wash from his heart the stain of giving up to death an innocent man for political reasons. Marcus, I am not squeamish. I might sell a man or a race of men to death to make more secure the power of Rome, but by my father's ancient shrines, I swear that I could not have found it in my heart to give this man up to death, though the throne of the Cæsars themselves would be saved from falling thereby. Pilate hath often thanked God before for endowing him with few compunctions, and now, he doubtless does so again.
To me, the details of the crucifixion. From out the tower, they bring me a cross, ugly with rusty nails, to which were hanging rags of dried flesh and were preparing it for him. But I said no and made them bring out a tall new cross. To crucify a Roman citizen were against the law of our nation. To crucify this godlike man is to outrage the constitution of the universe. Since we must lift this man upon a tree, we would lift him high towards that God of whom he talked and whose high character he most resembled. Those envenomed priests were for flinging the joined timbers on his back and the man would have borne them, too. He bowed his shoulders to their weight. Never a nobler, more submissive victim. But I made them stop and put it on a tall Cyrenian, whose massive shoulders could relieve Atlas of his weighty burden. My men tossed the cross upon the Cyrenian's shoulders and he bore it scowling mightily the while. I trouble not your mind with grisly details. The stretching on rude and lifeless wood of the finest figure of a man that ever came walking on the seas of life; the crashing of the mallet that forced rude nails through the finest fibered, sensitive flesh to the insensate wood; the uplifted cross, the jar and grind and shock as it fell into its socket, the wrench and strain of thews—the small cataracts of plashing blood that came splattering down upon the rocky soil at the instant of elevation! What sighs and tears and tremulous agony of quivering flesh passed hour after hour from the morning till afternoon! Only here let me set down that the vengeful malevolence of the hateful priests continued to the end. They matched his sighs with sneers, they countered his groans with jeers and for every line of his own noble gentleness and magnificent manhood they matched it with a feature of harshest bitterness, revealing that men in bloody anger are more heartless than the beasts. It hurt me to the core when we lifted this man upon the cross and he knew it and with uplifted eyes he whispered that I might hear, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."
And, then as I live, there came a darkness over the world—a strange unclouded fading of the light of day—a sort of shadow as if that the day of our act, our horrid deed, placed us beyond the pale of those kindly rays that shone for others, but not for us. It was as though we had darkened the face of God that day and as the darkness grew, a hush spread over all—all, until at noon, there was a dusk almost of midnight and in the dusk, the murmuring fear of the populace, the fierce unshrouded reviling of the persecutors and the sighs of him whose own life was slowly clouding into darkness. As the fever of his pain set in, with my own hands, I offered him upon a reed, the customary stupefying draught, but Marcus, he would not take it. This man, humiliated, tortured, scourged and scorned; his nerves torn with pain; his body racked with fever; his veins sapped of strength—refused. It was the noblest, most heroic act mine eyes have ever seen. He must suffer; therefore, he would suffer. As the flesh of him grew weak, I swear the soul of him grew stronger. It was the same spirit I saw in the garden and in the man before Caiaphas. The man suffers because he will, not because he must. I do not understand it; I could not comprehend it, but here is the most powerful man that ever lived with capacity to inspire devotion beyond all others in history, I am sure, who might have had at his back by the slightest exertion of his personal power and majesty an army that would sweep our nation's capital into the Tiber, yet suffering and dying at the hands of vengeful men because he would not lift a finger. He would not speak a word in his own behalf.
Marcus, the figure hanging there in the shadow, twisting and turning in restless involuntary movements that strained and tossed and strained again at the hideous nails that held him, searched my soul as never it was searched before.
Marcus, there be reaches in my mind, there be depths unexplored in the recesses of my heart, there be heights unsealed of my imagination such as never I have dreamed on before. This man exposed them to me. Is this man god? I begin to wonder. I had said that he was the noblest man I had ever seen; the manliest, but as I write and memory informs my reason again and yet again of what I saw this afternoon, I begin to question if we did not slay upon the cross the God of all the world. Two questions mount themselves like twin consuls in my mind, each inquiring insistently of the other, and one says, "He must be god, for how could man bear himself as he bore himself to-day, and die as he died?" The other says, "He must be man, for how could god bear what he bore to-day and die as he died?" But enough of speculation. You will think I am beside myself—perhaps I am. Perhaps he was. One human incident I must relate that shows the fine, high calm and utter selflessness of the man. When the darkness was thickest, instinctively we all huddled closer to the cross, for there appeared once more that strange luminous glow upon his hair and features which I had noted in the garden. While we clustered round, I heard a sob. The figure of a woman had pressed near, supported by a young man. She pressed close—I did not restrain her. Close, so close that she must have heard the dripping of the blood as it trickled upon the stones at the foot of the cross and when she sobbed, he turned his luminant eyes upon her with a look of infinite compassion. Nodding to the young man, he said, "Mother, behold thy son!" And to the son he said, "Behold thy mother," and the mother turned and the young man folded her to his breast, then tenderly he led her away. It was his own mother. He had provided for her. His father did not appear. Who he is I cannot make out except that in his prayer, it seemed as though he called God his father. Not a god, nor the gods, but God, and he spoke to him as to that personal constituent force that makes and is the universe. Several times the man spoke, muttering incoherent things, words I could not comprehend, and then at the ninth hour he died. It was sudden, unexpected. I had thought that such a figure might last in life for two or three days but, no, he died. I have seen men die, as you know, and my accustomed ear caught in a moment the sound of his going. I drew close—he whispered as to the shadows that bound us all together, "It is finished. Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit." Then he sighed and was dead. In the instant, the earth trembled. Not a shock nor yet a thing of violence. It seemed as though the earth shuddered and then was still. Instantly, the shadows were dissipated. The light came. The clear and gentle rays of the sunshine fell upon the thing of the cross. My eyes were glued upon it. In death a beautiful composure had come to him. The body swung straight down from the arms. The head had collapsed upon the chest. The soft beard swept the bosom. His long lashes drooped and kissed the ashy blue spots forming beneath the eyes above his marble cheeks. His features were waxlike in their whiteness and delicacy except where blood from the wounds upon his forehead had streaked his features over. His lips were closed in the last fine compression of noble resolution which resisted while he lived and persisted while he died. The noble rounding of the head, the graceful touch of his hair upon his shoulders—all proclaimed the finest sculpture character has ever chiselled in the marble of exquisite flesh. That fine strength was gone. The light of the eye had ceased to burn. That luminous glow I had noted on his hair and features had disappeared. The hair upon his brow moved under the impulse of the wind—that was all. Once the breath of life had blown through his body and every nerve and organ had been responsive to its will, but not now! He had passed calmly out of life into the robing room of the universe.
The man—the noblest man mine eyes have ever seen was dead, and after the soldiers had, by my own order, searched his very heart with the spear, we placed him in the tomb, as complete a marring of a noble being as earth had ever seen. Vengeful hatred and cruel weakness had done their worst upon him. Malevolence could have but one step further—having made him dead, it could wish him to remain dead and so it placed a seal upon the tomb. The seal of Cæsar upon the tomb of death.
Good fortune be thine. Vale.
Written from the Antonian Tower, Jerusalem, in the eighteenth year of Tiberius Cæsar and the eighth year of Pontius Pilate, Governor of Syria.