before the shearers? They had shot him and stabbed him and beaten him
into insensibility. The last thing he had heard was the shriek of one
woman, the piteous appeal of another. They thought he was dead, but he
was living. Why had he not died?

How could God be so cruel? This was war. This ruined sanctuary, these
broken men and women who had sought only to serve Him! Was there a God
indeed? Faith, hope, what were they? Assurance, trust? Words, words! Ah,
how he suffered.

[Illustration: "It is He," whispered the priest. "His sorrow was
greater than mine."]

It was bitter cold and yet he burned with fever. The tremors of pain so
exquisite that they might almost be counted pleasure shot through his
ruined, torn, broken figure, yet he recked little of these. It was the
shame, the shame. He had been zealous for the Lord of Hosts. There was
no God. Men were not made in any image save that of hell. He could not
move hand or foot, but he could see. He could speak. He could curse God
and die.

As his lips framed that anathema he saw vaguely the figure of a
stranger; a slender, wasted body, dark stains upon it in the moonlight.
It wore some kind of curious headgear. The man stared. The light was
reflected from the sharp points of long thorns. A cloth was fastened
about the loins. The figure stood very straight in the desecrated Holy
of Holies. A light seemed to come from its face. Its eyes looked at the
man with great pity. Slowly the figure raised its arms. Slowly the arms
extended themselves; there were blood-stains in the palms of the hands.