negade.

The Dominican Jew was tied to the timber. They had dressed him in a
gaberdine and set the yellow cap on his shaven poll. Beneath it his
face was calm, but very sad. He began to speak.

"Gag him!" cried the Magistrate. "He is about to blaspheme."

"Prithee not," pleaded a bully in the crowd. "We shall lose the
rascal's shrieks."

"Nay, fear not. I shall not blaspheme," said Joseph, smiling
mournfully. "I do but confess my sin and my deserved punishment. I set
out to walk in the footsteps of the Master--to win by love, to resist
not evil. And lo, I have used force against my old brethren, the Jews,
and force against my new brethren, the Christians. I have urged the
Pope against the Jews, I have urged the Christians against the Pope.
I have provoked bloodshed and outrage. It were better I had never been
born. Christ receive me into His infinite mercy. May He forgive me as
I forgive you!" He set his teeth and spake no more, an image of
infinite despair.

The flames curled up. They began to writhe about his limbs, but drew
no sound to vie with their crackling. But there was weeping heard in
the crowd. And suddenly from the unobservedly overcast heavens came a
flash of lightning and a peal of thunder followed by a violent shower
of rain. The flames were extinguished. The spring shower was as brief
as it was violent, but the wood would not relight.

But the crowd was not thus to be cheated. At the order of the
Magistrate the executioner thrust a sword into the criminal's bowels,
then, unbinding the body, let it fall upon the ground with a thud: it
rolled over on its back, and lay still for a moment, the white,
emaciated face staring at the sky. Then the executioner seized an axe
and quartered the corpse. Some sickened and turned away, but the bulk
remained gloating.

Then a Franciscan sprang on the cart, and from the bloody ominous text
patent to all eyes, passionately preached Christ and dissolved the mob
in tears.

X

In the house of Manasseh, the father of Joseph, there were great
rejoicings. Musicians had been hired to celebrate the death of the
renegade as tradition demanded, and all that the Pragmatic permitted
of luxury was at hand. And they danced, man with man and woman with
woman. Manasseh gravely handed fruits and wine to his guests, but the
old mother danced frenziedly, a set smile on her wrinkled face, her
whole frame shaken from moment to moment by peals of horrible
laughter.

Miriam fle