r of the hollowness of the real, wondered
where were the sable trappings of woe, the hideous envisagement of them
that are condemned with mortuary symbols in garbs of painted flame to
the stake, faggot, axe, and headsman. None of these were visible, and
the gentle spirit of the prisoner became ruffled, alarmed. He expected
violence but instead they offered churchly music. Restless, his nerves
fretted, he asked himself the reason. He did not fear death, for he
despised life; he had no earthly ties; his life's philosophy had been
fittingly enunciated; and he knew that even though a terrible death
overtook him his seed had fallen on ripe soil. As he was a descendant
from some older system that denied the will to live, so would he in turn
beget disciples who would be beaten, burned and reviled by the great foe
to liberty--the foe that strangled it before Egypt's theocracy, aye!
before the day of sun-worshippers invoking their round, burning god,
riding naked in the blue. Baruch pondered these things, and had almost
lost his grasp on time and space when something jarred his
consciousness.

It was the tap of the drum, sombre, dull, hollow and threatening; he
shivered as he heard its percussive note, and with a start remembered
that the _Dies Irae_ had been chaunted in the same key. Once more he
wondered.

A light touch on the shoulder brought him realization. He stood almost
alone; the monks were gliding down the great Hall of the Oblates and
disappearing through a low arched door, the sole opening in the huge
apartment. One remained, a black friar, absolutely hooded.

Baruch followed him. The pair noiselessly traversed the wonderful hall
with its canopies of light, its airy arches, massive groinings and
bewildering blur of color and fragrance; the air was thick and grateful
with incense. Exactly in the middle of the hall there rested on the
floor a black shadow, a curiously shaped shadow. It was a life-sized
crucifix which Baruch had not seen before. To it he was led by the black
friar, who motioned him to the floor; then this unbelieving Jew and
atheist laid himself humbly down, and with outstretched arms awaited his
end.

In few rapid movements the prisoner was chained to the cross; and with a
penetratingly sweet smile the friar gave him a silent blessing, while
Baruch's eyes followed the dazzling tracery on the ceiling, and caught a
glimpse of the golden, gleaming organ tubes above the Throne of
Judgment.

The stil