at some were almost frightened
by it. And they asked each other: "Who is the man with the fiery eyes?"

He reached the prophet. One hand hung down: he held the other against
his breast. He said softly; "John, pour water over my head, too."

The prophet looked at the young man and was terrified. He went back
two steps--they knew not why. Did he himself know?

"You!" he said, almost under his breath. "You desire to receive the
token of repentance from me?"

"I will do penance--for them all. I will begin with water what will be
ended with blood." That is what they thought to hear. In a man who
speaks like this, there is something incredibly spiritual.

"He is a dreamer! He is a madman!" the people whisper one to another.

"No, he's not, he's not!" others declare.

"Did he not speak of blood?"

"It seemed so. Such young blood, and already repenting!"

"And as proud of it as a Roman."

"With eyes glowing like an Arab's."

"Looking at his hair, you might take him for a German."

"He is neither a Roman, nor an Arab, nor a German," someone exclaimed,
laughing; "he is the carpenter of Nazareth."

"The same who turned water into wine?"

"There are lots of stories about him. We know plenty of them."

"It is said that Herod's murder of the innocents was on his account."

When the crowd heard that, they were quiet, and looked at the new
arrival with a sort of awe. And so old Herod had taken him for the
Messiah-King!

A feeling of reverence spread among the people. For Jesus stepped into
the river. The prophet dipped his vessel in the water and poured it
over his lightly-bent head. The edges of the clouds in the heavens
shone with the crimson light of evening. The eyes of the bystanders
were riveted by a white speck which showed itself in the windows of
heaven, first like a flower-bloom and then like a fluttering pennon.
It was a dove that flew down and circled round the head of him who had
just been baptized.

"My dearly beloved son!"

The people whispered; "Whose voice was it that said: 'My dearly beloved
son'?"

"Didn't it refer to him over whom the water has just been poured?"

A shudder seized many of them. It was just as if he was presented to
men by the invisible God!

"We will ask him himself whose son he is," they said, and pressed
towards the river. But he had gone away, and the twilight of the
desert lay over the stream.

The same night Mary sat in her room at Nazareth, and s