d empty; there was not a
glimmer of light, though the moon was surely up. He had seen her four
hours before, a red sickle, swing slowly out from Thabor. Across the
plain, as he looked from the parapet, there was nothing. For a few yards
there lay across the broken ground a single crooked lance of light from
a half-closed shutter; and beneath that, nothing. To the north again,
nothing; to the west a glimmer, pale as a moth's wing, from the
house-roofs of Nazareth; to the east, nothing. He might be on a
tower-top in space, except for that line of light and that grey glimmer
that evaded the eye.

On the roof, however, it was possible to make out at least outlines, for
the dormer trap had been left open at the head of the stairs, and from
somewhere within the depths of the house there stole up a faint
refracted light.

There was a white bundle in that corner; that would be the pillow of the
Benedictine abbot. He had seen him lay himself down there some time--was
it four hours or four centuries ago? There was a grey shape stretched
along that pale wall--the Friar, he thought; there were other irregular
outlines breaking the face of the parapet, here and there along the
sides.

Very softly, for he knew the caprices of sleep, he stepped across the
paved roof to the opposite parapet and looked over, for there yet hung
about him a desire for reassurance that he was still in company with
flesh and blood. Yes, indeed he was still on earth; for there was a real
and distinct light burning among the tumbled rocks, and beside it,
delicate as a miniature, the head and shoulders of a man, writing. And
in the circle of light were other figures, pale, broken patches on which
men lay; a pole or two, erected with the thought of a tent to follow; a
little pile of luggage with a rug across it; and beyond the circle other
outlines and shapes faded away into the stupendous blackness.

Then the writing man moved his head, and a monstrous shadow fled across
the ground; a yelp as of a strangling dog broke out suddenly close
behind him, and, as he turned, a moaning figure sat up on the roof,
sobbing itself awake. Another moved at the sound, and then as, sighing,
the former relapsed heavily against the wall, once more the priest went
back to his place, still doubtful as to the reality of all that he saw,
and the breathless silence came down again as a pall.

* * * * *

He woke again from dreamless sleep, and there was a change. From his
corn