BY THIS SIGN
At the side of a roadway leading up the sloping ascent of a bald hill,
on the outskirts of Jerusalem, stood a rock, which by the stone rolled
against it, was evidently a tomb of ancient days. This roadway, which
had been tramped into fine dust by the tread of many feet, ran along
the edge of a ravine, the far side of which was cut with sepulchres and
fissured into narrow caves. Just beyond the tomb, the road turned to
the top of the hill which was hidden by a solitary dying olive that
cast its black branches across a pile of bleached gray rock. On this
bald hill three crosses had been set up and since sunrise a vast crowd
had thronged the roadway, for it had early become news that he who had
been acclaimed King of the Jews had been hanged between two thieves,
and many there were who were curious to see the sad plight of the King.
As the mocking crowd surged about the hill-top, and the sun was shining
high in the heavens, the victim on the center cross uttered a cry which
seemed to vibrate into the very element and turn the light of midday
into impenetrable darkness and shake the earth with a mighty trembling.
Rocks rattled down the ravine; tomb-doors were shaken from their
holdings; the moaning of wind, like a dying breath, passed the length
of the valley below and from the black depths a leper cried, "Unclean!
Unclean!" his despairing wail answered by the scream of a maniac.
In the midst of the darkness there were fitful outbursts of dull green
light, like the expiring effort of a perishing sun, and in these
ghostly gleams people could be seen running to and fro. Among them
were a woman and a man; the woman wrapped in a long cloak, the man,
mighty in size, with scarce enough garments to cover his body, but to
these the woman clung as they crept behind the wayside rock for
shelter. Scarcely had they settled close to the rock than it began to
tremble, and then the stone rolled away from before it and a skeleton
toppled out, falling at the very feet of the woman.
With a scream she cried, "My dream! My dream! Even now it cometh to
pass! Help! Help!"
The man drew the woman away from the skeleton and closer to the
trembling rock.
"Even the dead come forth!" she wailed. "It is the end of all things!
By the death of us all shall the gods avenge the death of the Jew! Oh,
my eunuch, save me! Thou art strong! Thou wert a follower and a
believer. Save me!" and she threw herself into his arms.
"Calm thyself, most noble Claudia," the man said in quiet tones. "That
which maketh the earth tremble until stones roll from the grave, is
naught but the same power that piles still water into waves of rocking
mountains and that breaks the cedars of the hills as if they were dead
grass. Fear not."
"Thou sayest--but feel the rocking of the earth."
"Yea, it doth tremble. Yet hath it trembled before and will tremble
again. In Thrace have I seen the earth shake open in yawning pits."
"But the sun is dark at midday! What meaneth it?"
"Something hath come between the sun and thy vision. The sun yet
shineth."
"Nay! Nay! Even the sun doth darker, its face in shame that the Jew,
that just man, should be hung upon a cross to die! Oh, Pilate!
Pilate! How could you?"
While they were speaking the darkness lightened and two soldiers
crossed the road. When they reached the skeleton whose white outlines
could be dimly seen in the gray light, they stopped suddenly.
"The dead come forth! Wherefore?" exclaimed one.
"Because this thing came of a race that knowest nothing, not even that
it is dead." He kicked the skull which separated itself from the body
and rolled toward him. Stopping it with his boot he said, "Aye, good
Jew, art thou dead or alive? Speak!"
"He is lacking a tongue," and the second soldier laughed. The first
ran his sword through the ribs of the skeleton and flinging it into the
ravine kicked the skull after it.
In the silence that followed this clearing of the roadway, a moan was
heard from the hidden hill-top. It was one of the malefactors begging
for a stupefying potion to stay his torment.
"Hear," said one of the soldiers. "_He_ beggeth with a good tongue."
"Yea, but the Jew that hangeth between the two refused the draught."
"He refuseth nothing now. The tongue of the 'King of the Jews' waggeth
no longer in profane bragging against Caesar. Let us see to him."
When the soldiers had turned up the hill, the woman behind the rock
spoke again. "Oh, my eunuch," she said, "go thou to the cross and
inquire of the Jew. They say he is dead--dead," and her voice ended in
a sob.
"Be comforted, most gracious Claudia. Methinks they speak what they
know not. Yet will thy servant inquire."
While the eunuch was gone a group of soldiers came down the road
bearing a purple robe. Near the rock behind which Claudia stood
concealed they seated themselves, removed their helmets and dropped
dice in them.
"A goodly apparel," one soldier said, holding forth the robe.
"Yea, and a crown went with it," a second said.
"Yea, and a cross followed after it," a third added.
"For Pilate is the friend of Caesar."
"Thus ever with those Rome hath cause to fear," the first soldier
observed as he shook the dice in his helmet. Then in turn the soldiers
rattled their dice and spoke.
"Look thou! Look thou!"
"Aye, but look here."
"Yea, but cast thine eyes on my luck!"
"I throw well!"
"I throw better!"
"I throw best! Look! The garment is mine!"
While they had been casting lots for the robe, several bystanders had
collected. Among them was a thickly built man with a peculiar mark on
his face. Straight above the line of his black beard it lay across one
cheek like a red and purple band ending in a black mark at the tip on
his ear. He wore a handsomely embroidered turban and carried a blue
cloak. When the game, which he watched with interest, was finished and
the new owner of the robe had taken possession of it, the bystander
said, "How fareth the King whose robe now becometh thine?"
"When we left him but a short time since, he no longer begged for water
and his head hung limp."
"Perhaps he hath but fainted," the man with the blue cloak suggested.
"Then shall the breaking of bones make sure his end."
"Knowest thou where the bone-breaker is?"
"I am he."
"And when wilt thou break the bones of his body?"
"What matter to thee when his bones are broken?"
"None save this. When the vast darkness that just now is lifting, was
blackest, I heard a company of his followers whispering, and they did
say he swore that, though dead, yet on the third day would he rise from
the grave."
"And thou wouldst know of a surety that his legs are broken so that if
he be stolen from the tomb his legs carry him not far?" and the
soldiers laughed. "Fret not, the bones of the Jew will soon be broken."
"Wouldst thou break them sooner for a piece of gold?" and he drew from
his cloak a wallet.
The soldier sprang up eagerly and held out his hand saying, "A coin
upon the palm doth grant thy desire before thine eyes. The coin--then
come, let us to the bone-breaking."
The man with the wallet had his hand on the gold, and the man with the
heavy sword had his hand well held out for the gift, when a woman
appeared suddenly before them and said to the soldier, "Lift not thy
hand against the bones of the Jew!"
"What meanest thou--follower of the Jew?" the soldier replied angrily.
"Nay, not a follower of the Jew am I. Yet I know he was a just man."
"Thou dost lie with clumsy tongue," the soldier declared. "Thou art
one of his followers."
"Whether I lie, or whether I lie not, break not a bone of the Jew's
body!"
"Thou art a cunning follower of the Jew, and bold. Yet shall his bones
be broken. Move thou on farther from the cross. Stand to one side,"
and he lifted his broad sword.
"And when did it come to pass," she said without moving, "that a dog of
a soldier lifted the sword against a Roman?"
"A Roman? In my eye, a Roman," and the soldier laughed.
"Yea, a Roman--and more than a Roman. Let thine eyes look!" With the
words Claudia threw back the long cloak and stood forth in the gorgeous
apparel of a Roman noblewoman. The soldiers moved back a step and
looked in wonderment as she spoke again. "A Roman? More than a Roman
is Claudia Procula, wife of Pontius Pilate! Knowest thou,
bone-breakers of the Tower of Antonio, who Pilate is? Not a follower
of the Jew am I, but by the ring upon my hand I am the wife of the
Roman Procurator, and I say to thee, not a bone of this just man's body
shall be broken, else with thy broken body wilt thou pay bone for bone!"
The soldiers moved back a few steps farther. Then one said, "And when
hath it come to pass that Pilate's wife giveth orders?"
"When Pilate washeth his hands of the tragedy, then doth Claudia
command."
"Thou dost talk strangely for a Roman."
"This is a time of strange things. Strange darkness--strange trembling
of the earth--strange bravery of a just man. Yea, a time of strange
happenings. But break thou not the bones of the Jew."
The bystander with blue cloak and open wallet had moved aside a short
distance. To him Claudia now turned, and after a moment of scrutiny
she said, "By thy nose made fast against thy head and the twist of thy
tongue when it doth barter where gold is passed, thou art a Jew. A
Jew--and _such_ a Jew! For the hardness of thy heart may the dark and
ugly stripe thou wearest stay with thee ever. Even as thou standest
before me in the dust, my eyes behold thee shrink into a viper! Get
thee hence!"
When the soldiers and the Jewish bystander had gone down the roadway
toward the city, Claudia stepped back behind the rock. During the time
she had been talking the dim light had given way again to the
brightness of the day. From her place she watched the passers-by and
harkened their comment. Some, mocking, said, "He saved others, himself
he could not save." Some marveled that his last breath should be a
prayer of forgiveness for those who had robbed him of his life; some
declared the show were not worth the dusty pilgrimage from Jerusalem on
a hot day; some laughed to find a King in so sad a plight. Some wept.
One such a woman in black who came slowly, leaning on the arm of a
young man, and sobbing: "He is dead! He is dead!" And when the young
man sought to comfort her as a son would comfort a mother, her moaning
heart cried only, "He is dead! My son--my little Jehu--he is dead!"
And the suffering of the woman moved the heart of Claudia until tears
wet her face.
Gradually the number of passers-by grew less and by the conversation of
the stragglers Claudia knew that the body had been taken from the
cross. After what seemed hours of waiting, the eunuch returned to her.
"Long hast thou been gone!" she said.
"Yea, most noble Claudia, for it hath been given thy scarred servant to
take in his strong arm the body of the Galilean from his cross. Holy
service!"
"And he is dead--dead--" and Claudia's voice broke under its burden of
pain.
"Weep not! Weep not!" said the scarred eunuch. "Thy falling tears
drop heavily on thy servant's heart. Weep not."
"Thy kind heart hath never been the heart of a bond-slave," Claudia
sobbed. "But he is dead--he is _dead_!"
"Dead? Yea--and nay, for of his promise cometh the glorious hope that
turneth the waters of bitterness into the oil of joy and sobs into
singing."
"What promise is this?"
"On the third day he shall rise from the dead and come forth from the
grave."
"Rise from the dead! Come forth from the grave!" and Claudia lifted
her eyes in astonishment.
"Yea, most noble Claudia--alive forever more. When he hath so often
said, 'I and the Father are One,' he hath meant in power over life and
death, for hath he not said of his life, 'I have power to lay it down
and power to take it up again?'"
"He that is dead shall come forth to everlasting life?" Claudia
repeated as if dazed.
"Thou speakest. Of his divine love for humankind hath the Nazarene
laid down his life, that of the sacrifice may be knitted together the
hearts of all races and kinds of men into the Brotherhood for which he
lived and died. And when he shall take up that life, then will there
be victory over death and the grave forever more to all who believe.
According to the faith he hath taught hath the Galilean this day
achieved immortal victory. Wouldst thou see from whence the body of
the Conqueror hath been taken?"
"Yea, I would see."
He led the way up the road and as they turned on to the brow of the
hill, three upright crosses came boldly into view. On two of them hung
human forms with drooping heads from the half opened mouths of which a
tongue point protruded. Their hand palms were filled with clotted
blood and their legs, freshly mangled by the bone-breakers, hung limp.
They were too well dead now longer to attract sight-seers, and the few
guards left kept tired watch at a distance. The center cross stood
tall, its outstretched arms overtopping the lesser crosses. On its
highest point was the superscription of Pilate. There was nothing to
show it had been the death bed of a human being, other than the red
stains at its center made by the scourge-cut back that had lain against
it. In the full light of a western sun, this red center took on a
ruddy glow.
Silent the two stood a moment. Then she said, "And thou callest him
'conqueror' whose wounded body doth even now lie in the tomb?"
"According to the mystery of the Way, he is more than conqueror."
"What is the Way, my eunuch?"
"The way of a seed of corn that passeth into the abundance of new life."
"Thy message reacheth the heart of Claudia but dimly. Hast thou not
words to name this Way?"
"Yea, most noble mistress. In thine own tongue can thy servant name
the Way."
"I listen."
"_Via crucis_."
"_Via crucis_," Claudia repeated. "And this meaneth?" and she lifted
her eyes to the face of the man.
"That when in thy heart thou hast overcome fear and unbelief, then hast
thou the victory over death and the grave. This be the Way."
"Oh, that I _might_ have victory over fear and doubt and death! That I
might enter into the faith! My scarred eunuch, thou hast led my feet
thus far. Take thou my hand and lead me yet a little nearer to the
cross."
Hand in hand the Roman noblewoman and the scarred eunuch moved nearer
the bloodstained emblem of baptism to the Way. The man released the
hand of the woman that he might hold both hands over his heart as he
lifted his face to some blessed hope or vision that lay beyond sight of
the woman's eyes. Yet she read on his calm and shining face that he
too was a conqueror and that yet in his body he had victory over death.
She turned her eyes once again to the crimson wood just before her,
lifted her hand and reverently made the sign of the cross over her
heart. As she did so a peace greater than her understanding flooded
her being and her breath came like that of one new born, as she
whispered, "_Crux rosatus_! _In hoc signo vinces_!"