WITH the dispersion of the great crowd of poor ignorants who had
gathered about John the Baptist, we thought that the agitation was
ended.
We were mistaken.
For a time nothing more was heard of the Christ whom John had baptized.
Then, suddenly, there came rumors, first from one side and then from
another; fugitive words telling of a renewed excitement that had begun
to ferment obscurely in that same nether class that had followed John
to his baptism. Gradually these rumors became more and more dominant,
and every day more people heard of and became interested in what was
said. The interest was not very great with us, but it was sufficient to
keep alive the observation of the daily papers.
The Messiah who had been baptized by John had reappeared, and many
people of the poorer classes were gathering about Him in numbers to
hear His teachings and to receive His word. These poor people asserted
that He performed many miracles; that He could heal the sick and
diseased by merely touching them with His hand; that He caused the lame
to walk, the dumb to speak, and the blind to see. It was said that many
miraculous cures had already been performed by Him.
It happened at this time that a party of men of the literary and
artistic world had chartered a vessel and had fitted it up as a
floating studio, adorning it with antique furniture, rugs, hangings,
and bric-à-brac.
It was a very merry party--a party of sadducees who strenuously
believed in no resurrection. There was Archibald Redfern, the
writer-artist-man-about-town; Corry King, assistant editor and business
manager of the _Aurora_; Marcey, the architect; Chillingham Norcott,
the artist; Allington, of the publishing-house of Richard White & Co.;
Dr. Ames, Pinwell, and others. During the cruise, Norcott, Pinwell,
and Redfern had enriched the panels of the cabin with marines and
landscapes and decorative pieces until the interior looked almost
like a picture-gallery. Everything was as luxurious as possible. They
had engaged Pierre Blanc to go with them and to cook for them, and
they paid him six hundred dollars for the three or four weeks of the
cruise. When it is said that Dr. Ames himself selected the wines and
liquors, nothing more need be said concerning the provisioning of the
expedition.
The cruise had been a complete success, and now they were about
returning to the metropolis again. They had run short of ice, and had
put in at a small coast town for a fresh supply.
Redfern, who had arrogated to himself the position of head-steward, had
gone ashore in the boat with the steward _de facto_. There he heard
strange and wonderful reports of miracles that were being performed in
the neighborhood.
As the boat, returning from the shore, touched the side of the
schooner, Redfern came scrambling aboard, and almost immediately his
loud, brassy voice was heard from end to end of the vessel, telling of
wonders performed and of miracles wrought.
Some of the party were mildly gambling at poker under the awning,
waiting Redfern's return with the ice. Corry King lay stretched out
upon a couch in his shirt-sleeves reading a magazine, a tall glass
of brandy-and-soda at his elbow. Norcott was sketching listlessly;
the others were talking together. They all looked up at the sound of
Redfern's loud voice. There was nothing funny in what he said, but
they all laughed.
"And you have returned cured of body and sound of soul, I suppose,"
said Ames.
"It isn't of myself I'm thinking," said Redfern, in his strident,
insistent voice, a voice that almost stunned the hearer if he were near
by and not used to it. "It's not of myself I'm thinking. I'm thinking
of you. I tell you, boys, this is the chance of your life. I'm going
to take you all ashore this afternoon. Your souls have run down during
this cruise, and what you want is to get a good brace of salvation
before you get back home again."
They all went ashore in the afternoon. The town appeared to be
singularly deserted. A few guests hung about the third-class summer
hotel porch, sitting uncomfortably on the hard, wooden chairs in the
shade. An occasional inhabitant appeared here and there on the hot,
sandy stretch of street, but everywhere there was a feeling of dull and
silent depletion. The party inquired at the hotel office and found that
He whom they sought was then supposed to be at a certain place about
six miles below the town where there was a high and rocky hill. They
found that they could obtain a conveyance, and, after a good deal of
jocular chaffing with the fat and grinning hackman, the vehicle was
ordered, and a team of four horses. It was a dusty, rattletrap affair,
and the party piled in with much noisy confusion, struggling for seats,
and sitting in one another's laps. The hotel guests sat looking on with
a sort of outside interest and amusement. Then the hack drove away with
a volley of cheers and a chorus of mimic coach-horns.
"Look here, boys," called out Corry King, "what I want to know is
whether Redfern's taking us down here for our sakes or for his own?
Either he has got to take this thing seriously or else we have."
"It's all for your sake, my boy! For your sake!" cried out Redfern's
brazen, dominant voice. "I made up my mind last night when I saw the
way you bucked up against Marcy's luck in that last jack-pot that you
needed some sort of salvation to pull you through till we get you home
again."
It was three o'clock before they approached their destination. As
they drew near they found that everywhere vehicles of all sorts were
standing along the road, the horses hitched to the fence at the
road-sides. They could see from a distance as they approached that the
hill was covered with a restless, swaying mass of people, and then they
saw that the crowd was moving voluminously all in one direction--away
from the crest.
"I'm afraid you're too late to hear Him, gentlemen," said the driver,
and he urged the horses forward with greater speed.
It was true; they were just too late to hear that sermon which voiced
the sublimest code of ethics the world has ever heard--sublime, but, in
our opinion, impracticable.
Presently they were met, almost suddenly, by the broken, ragged
outskirts of the moving crowd that was beginning to pour away from the
hill. They had not, until then, any idea how great was the agitation
centring around this strange being.
Then, almost in a moment, the crowd became so dense that the hack could
make no further progress. "I reckon we'll have to pull out of the way,"
said the driver.
"All right," said Redfern; "pull away."
And now the crowd was so thick about them that it was with some
difficulty that the driver could edge his horses over to the side of
the road. And every instant the mass of men and women grew more and
more dense. "Look out where you're going! Look out there!" cried a
chorus of voices, as the crowd melted and dissolved before the horses,
closing again around the hack. And now the road was suddenly filling
with a great press of people moving all in one direction; the air was
made dense and darkened with clouds of dust. Then the party in the hack
saw approaching along the road the nucleus of this denser crowd which
so centred about a single point. "Yonder He is," cried the driver,
standing up and pointing with his whip. "That's Him, there."
The men were all standing up in the hack.
"Where?" said Redfern.
"That's Him--that tall man," said the driver.
The crowd were surging all about them, pushing against the wheels of
the hack. The air was full of the tumult of many voices. The horses
shrank to one side as the moving mass eddied around them. Then there
came a little group of rough men, apparently fishermen. In the midst of
them was a tall man. His face was wet with sweat, and drops of sweat
ran down His cheeks. He gazed straight before Him and seemed oblivious
to everything about Him. The men in the hack all knew that that must be
He, and they stood up looking at Him.
Then they saw a miracle.
Suddenly, almost alongside them, there was a commotion and an outcry
of voices. The crowd parted, and as those in the hack looked down,
they saw a man struggling out of it and panting and gasping. It was a
dreadful sight. He was covered over with hideous, scrofulous sores. No
wonder the crowd parted to make way for him. Through his panting he was
shouting, hoarsely, "Make me clean! Make me clean!" The crowd surged
and swayed with an echoing outcry of voices, and for a moment the man
was shut out from the sight of those sadducees. Then they could see
that the diseased man was kneeling in the road.
"I will," said a loud, clear voice that dominated the disturbance. "Be
clean!" They could see that He upon whom they were looking had reached
out His hand. They could not see what He did, but He appeared to touch
the kneeling man. Instantly there was a great shout, and the crowd
surged and swept and heaved more tumultuously than ever. They could not
see what had happened.
"My God!" cried out the driver, "did you see that?"
"See what?" said Corry King, who stood next him. In spite of himself he
felt thrilled with a sympathetic excitement.
"Didn't you see it? He cured him."
"Cured him?" said King. "Who? Where is he?"
"Now--don't you see him? There he is."
Had they really beheld a miracle? No; they had not. Archibald Redfern
burst out laughing. "Didn't you see it, King?" he jeered. "Where are
your eyes?"
* * * * *
That evening it was said that He would heal the sick who would come to
Him. The boat party, interested in what they had already heard, went
ashore again after dark. The town that had seemed to be dead and empty
when they were there before, was now full of people. There were crowds
everywhere. The night was hot and oppressive. The sadducees followed
whither the crowd seemed to move, the press growing ever thicker and
thicker, until, by-and-by, they reached a street densely packed with
the throng.
It was a dark and narrow street in the suburbs. It was packed full of
people, and it was only after much difficulty they were able to reach
a point of vantage--a broad flight of wooden steps that led up to the
door of a frame church. Thence they could see over the heads of the mob
of men and women who filled the street beyond. They could see that the
people were bringing the sick through the crowd. Near them was a man
carrying a little child in his arms. Its poor little legs were twisted
into a steel frame. A woman followed close behind the man. The child
lay with its head upon the man's shoulder and appeared to be crying,
though it was too dark to see clearly. The man moved, step by step,
forward, and presently was swallowed into the dark mass of humanity
beyond. In the distance was a doorway in which stood a figure of a man,
black against the dull light of the lamp behind. There appeared to be
a number of other figures crowded in the passageway behind Him. People
were looking out of the windows of the neighboring houses. They could
not see from the church-steps where they stood what He was doing, but
He was constantly moving and stooping forward. The tumult and din were
dreadful. It appeared a pandemonium of wild, unmeaning excitement. As
in the afternoon, it was an excitement that was contagious. "Do you
suppose He really is curing them?" said Norcott, and again Archibald
Redfern burst out laughing.
"Why, of course He is," said he.
He had seen no miracle and could see none. How was it possible for
a sadducee, who believed in no resurrection, to see a miracle? The
wisest sadducee that ever lived, had he seen a miracle, would not
have believed it. Had the Almighty blotted out the sun and the moon
and written the sign of His Truth in letters of fire all across the
blackened canopy of the heavens, Redfern or Corry King would not have
believed--they would have misdoubted their own eyesight.
After they had satisfied their curiosity, the party went back to the
boat and played poker until nearly two o'clock in the morning.