indow to go their ways, that
I did not know them and I was not going to open the door. But they only
hammered louder, swearing they were going to break in the door and
come in and cut off my nose and ears. To stop their uproar I emptied a
crockful of water on their heads; but the crock slipped out of my hands
and broke on the back of one fellow's neck so unchancily that it felled
him. His comrade called up the watch. I was haled to the Chatelet and
clapped in prison, where I was very hardly handled, and only escaped by
paying a heavy sum of money. I found my house pillaged from cellar to
attic. From that day my affairs have gone from bad to worse, and I have
naught in the wide world but the clothes I stand up in. In very despair
I have come hither to hear the good Father, who they say abounds in
comforting words."

"God, who loves you," said Guillaumctte Dyonis, "has moved you in all
this."

Then a great silence fell on the crowd as Brother Joconde appeared. His
eyes flashed like lightning. When he opened his lips, his voice pealed
out like thunder.

"I have come from Jerusalem," he began; "and to prove it, see in this
wallet are roses of Jericho, a branch of the olive under which Our
Saviour sweated drops of blood, and a handful of the earth of Calvary."

He gave a long narrative of his pilgrimage. And he added:

"In Syria I met Jews travelling in companies; I asked them whither they
were bound, and they told me: 'We are flocking in crowds to Babylon,
because in very deed the Messiah is born among men, and will restore
us our heritage, and stablish us again in the Land of Promise.' So said
these Jews of Syria. Now the Scriptures teach us that he they call the
Messiah is, in truth, Antichrist, of whom it is said he must be born at
Babylon, chief city of the kingdom of Persia, be reared at Bethsaida,
and dwell in his youth at Chorazin. That is why Our Lord said: 'Woe unto
thee, Chor-azin! Woe unto thee, Bethsaida!'

"The year that is at hand," went on Brother Joconde, "will bring the
greatest marvels that have ever been beheld.

"The times are at hand. He is born, the man of sin, the son of
perdition, the wicked man, the beast from out the abyss, the abomination
of desolation. He comes from the tribe of Dan, of which it is written:
'Dan shall be a serpent in the way, an adder in the path.'

"Brethren, soon shall ye see returning to this earth the Prophets Elias
and Enoch, Moses, Jeremias, and St. John Evangelist