g full well that with the words I
gave up all hope of her.

"You are a man-slave of Tiberius, a hound of Rome," she flamed, "but you
owe Rome nothing, for you are not a Roman. You yellow giants of the
north are not Romans."

"The Romans are the elder brothers of us younglings of the north," I
answered. "Also, I wear the harness and I eat the bread of Rome." Gently
I added: "But why all this fuss and fury for a mere man's life? All men
must die. Simple and easy it is to die. To-day, or a hundred years, it
little matters. Sure we are, all of us, of the same event in the end."

Quick she was, and alive with passion to save as she thrilled within my
arms.

"You do not understand, Lodbrog. This is no mere man. I tell you this
is a man beyond men--a living God, not of men, but over men."

I held her closely and knew that I was renouncing all the sweet woman of
her as I said:

"We are man and woman, you and I. Our life is of this world. Of these
other worlds is all a madness. Let these mad dreamers go the way of
their dreaming. Deny them not what they desire above all things, above
meat and wine, above song and battle, even above love of woman. Deny
them not their hearts' desires that draw them across the dark of the
grave to their dreams of lives beyond this world. Let them pass. But
you and I abide here in all the sweet we have discovered of each other.
Quickly enough will come the dark, and you depart for your coasts of sun
and flowers, and I for the roaring table of Valhalla."

"No! no!" she cried, half-tearing herself away. "You do not understand.
All of greatness, all of goodness, all of God are in this man who is more
than man; and it is a shameful death to die. Only slaves and thieves so
die. He is neither slave nor thief. He is an immortal. He is God.
Truly I tell you He is God."

"He is immortal you say," I contended. "Then to die to-day on Golgotha
will not shorten his immortality by a hair's breadth in the span of time.
He is a god you say. Gods cannot die. From all I have been told of
them, it is certain that gods cannot die."

"Oh!" she cried. "You will not understand. You are only a great giant
thing of flesh."

"Is it not said that this event was prophesied of old time?" I queried,
for I had been learning from the Jews what I deemed their subtleties of
thinking.

"Yes, yes," she agreed, "the Messianic prophecies. This is the Messiah."

"Then who am I," I asked, "to make