hing the refrain the mob repeated, turned his eyes from the
soldiery to the adjacent cross.

"If you are as they say," he cried, "save yourself and us."

As a taunt to Caiaphas, Calcol echoed, "Behold your king!" and raising a
stalk of hyssop, on which was a sponge that he had dipped in the posca,
the thin wine the soldiers drink, he offered it to the Christ.

The sun was nearing the horizon. Caiaphas gathered his ample folds about
him. He had seen enough. The feast, wretchedly embittered, was nearly
done. There was another at which he must officiate: the shofa presently
would sound; the skewering of the Paschal lamb it was needful for him to
superintend. It was time, he knew, to return to the Temple; and as he gave
a last indignant look at the placard, the lips of the Christ parted to one
despairing cry:

"Eli, Eli, lemah shebaktani?"

Caiaphas, nodding to the elders, smiled with satisfaction.

At last the false pretender was forced to acknowledge the invalidity of
his claims. The Father whose son he vaunted himself to be had disowned him
when his recognition was needed, if ever it had been needed at all. And
so, with the smile of one whose labor has had its recompense, Caiaphas
patted his skirt, and the elders about him strolled back through the
Gannath Gate to the Temple that awaited him.

The multitude meanwhile had decreased. To the crowd also the Temple had
its attractions, its duties, and its offices. Moreover, the spectacle was
at an end. With a blow of the mallet the legs of the thieves had been
broken. They had died without a shriek, a thing to be regretted. The
Galilean too, pierced by the level stroke of a spear, had succumbed
without a word. Sundown was approaching. Clearly it was best to be within
the walls where other gayeties were. The mob dispersed, leaving behind but
the dead, the circling vultures, a group of soldiers throwing dice for the
garments of the crucified, and, remotely, a group of women huddled beneath
a protecting oak.

During the hour or two that intervened, the force which had visited Mary
evaporated in strength overtaxed. She was conscious only that she
suffocated. The words of the women that had drawn her to them were empty
as blanks in a dream; the jeers of the mob vacant as an empty bier. To but
one thing was she alive, the fact that death could be. Little by little,
as the impossible merged into the actual, the understanding came to her
that the worst that could be had been