dren of Israel, scattered in far lands, had returned to the
Temple for the great feast, and there had been a confusion of tongues in
the narrow streets for many days.

But on this day a singular agitation was visible in the multitude. The
sky was veiled with a portentous gloom. Currents of excitement seemed
to flash through the crowd. A secret tide was sweeping them all one way.
The clatter of sandals and the soft, thick sound of thousands of bare
feet shuffling over the stones, flowed unceasingly along the street that
leads to the Damascus gate.

Artaban joined a group of people from his own country, Parthian Jews who
had come up to keep the Passover, and inquired of them the cause of the
tumult, and where they were going.

"We are going," they answered, "to the place called Golgotha, outside
the city walls, where there is to be an execution. Have you not heard
what has happened? Two famous robbers are to be crucified, and with them
another, called Jesus of Nazareth, a man who has done many wonderful
works among the people, so that they love him greatly. But the priests
and elders have said that he must die, because he gave himself out to
be the Son of God. And Pilate has sent him to the cross because he said
that he was the 'King of the Jews.'"

How strangely these familiar words fell upon the tired heart of Artaban!
They had led him for a lifetime over land and sea. And now they came to
him mysteriously, like a message of despair. The King had arisen, but
he had been denied and cast out. He was about to perish. Perhaps he
was already dying. Could it be the same who had been born in Bethlehem
thirty-three years ago, at whose birth the star had appeared in heaven,
and of whose coming the prophets had spoken?

Artaban's heart beat unsteadily with that troubled, doubtful
apprehension which is the excitement of old age. But he said within
himself: "The ways of God are stranger than the thoughts of men, and it
may be that I shall find the King, at last, in the hands of his enemies,
and shall come in time to offer my pearl for his ransom before he dies."

So the old man followed the multitude with slow and painful steps
toward the Damascus gate of the city. Just beyond the entrance of the
guardhouse a troop of Macedonian soldiers came down the street, dragging
a young girl with torn dress and dishevelled hair. As the Magian paused
to look at her with compassion, she broke suddenly from the hands of
her tormentors, and