an expression of childlike
innocence and heavenly peace. The thongs have drawn blood at the wrists
and ankles, which has run and soaked into the sand; but angels received
the body from the soldiers when they took it off the rack, and it lies,
sweetly and modestly composed, upon the ground.

Passers-by stand still and gaze; idlers gather round. The report spreads
in Sicca that neither sun by day, nor moon by night, nor moist atmosphere,
nor beast of prey, has power over the wonderful corpse. Nay, that they
cannot come near it without falling under some strange influence, which
makes them calm and grave, expels bad passions, and allays commotion of
mind. Many come again and again, for the mysterious and soothing effect
she exerts upon them. They cannot talk freely about it to each other, and
are seized with a sacred fear when they attempt to do so. Those who have
merely heard their report without seeing her, say that these men have been
in a grove of the Eumenides, or have suddenly encountered the wolf. The
popular sensation continues and extends; some say it is magical, others
that it is from the great gods. Day sinks again into evening, evening
becomes night; the night wears out, and morning is coming again.

It begins to dawn: a glimmer is faintly spread abroad, and, mixing with
the dark, makes twilight, which gradually brightens, and the outlines of
nature rise dimly out of the night. Gradually the sacred body comes to
sight; and, as the light grows stronger around it, gradually too the forms
of five men emerge, who had not been there the night before. One is in
front; the rest behind with a sort of bier or litter. They stand on the
mountain side of her, and must have come from the country. It has been a
bold enterprise theirs, to expose themselves to the nightly beasts, and
now again to the rabble and the soldiers. The soldiers are at some little
distance, silent and watchful; such of the rabble as have passed the night
there have had some superstitious object in their stay. They have thought
to get portions of the flesh for magical purposes; a finger, or a tooth,
or some hair, or a portion of her tunic, or the blood-stained rope which
was twisted round her wrist and ankle.

As the light makes her at length quite visible to the youth on the other
side, who stands by himself with clasped hands and tearful eyes, he
shrinks from the sight. He turns round to his companions who are provided
with a large winding-sheet or