erhead the clear Eastern sky was flushed with rose, as it had flushed
for Abraham, Jacob, and the Son of David. There was no little cloud
here, as a man's hand, over the sea, charged with both promise and
terror; no sound of chariot-wheels from earth or heaven, no vision of
heavenly horses such as a young man had seen thirty centuries ago in
this very sky. Here was the old earth and the old heaven, unchanged and
unchangeable; the patient, returning spring had starred the thin soil
with flowers of Bethlehem, and those glorious lilies to which Solomon's
scarlet garments might not be compared. There was no whisper from the
Throne as when Gabriel had once stooped through this very air to hail
Her who was blessed among women, no breath of promise or hope beyond
that which God sends through every movement of His created robe of life.

As the two halted, and the horses looked out with steady, inquisitive
eyes at the immensity of light and air beneath them, a soft hooting cry
broke out, and a shepherd passed below along the hillside a hundred
yards away, trailing his long shadow behind him, and to the mellow
tinkle of bells his flock came after, a troop of obedient sheep and
wilful goats, cropping and following and cropping again as they went on
to the fold, called by name in that sad minor voice of him who knew
each, and led instead of driving. The soft clanking grew fainter, the
shadow of the shepherd shot once to their very feet, as he topped the
rise, and vanished again as he stepped down once more; and the call grew
fainter yet, and ceased.

* * * * *

The Pope lifted His hand to His eyes for an instant, then smoothed it
down His face.

He nodded across to a dim patch of white walls glimmering through the
violet haze of the falling twilight.

"That place, father," He said, "what is its name?"

The Syrian priest looked across, back once more at the Pope, and across
again.

"That among the palms, Holiness?"

"Yes."

"That is Megiddo," he said. "Some call it Armageddon."

CHAPTER II

I

At twenty-three o'clock that night the Syrian priest went out to watch
for the coming of the messenger from Tiberias. Nearly two hours
previously he had heard the cry of the Russian volor that plied from
Damascus to Tiberias, and Tiberias to Jerusalem, and even as it was the
messenger was a little late.

These were very primitive arrangements, but Palestine was out of the
world--a slip of useless country--and it was n