The Holy Cross and Other Tales | Page 8

one in shining

raiment, and lo! 't was he who bore the cross to Calvary! His eyes that
had pleaded to me on a time now fell compassionately upon me, and
the voice that had commanded me move on forever, now broke full
sweetly on my ears: 'Thou shalt go on no more, O Jew, but as thou hast
asked, so shall it be, and thou shalt sleep forever beneath the cross.'
Then fell I into a deep slumber, and, therefrom but just now awaking, I
feel within me what peace bespeaketh pardon for my sin. This day am I
ransomed; so suffer me to go my way, O holy man."
So went the Jew upon his way, not groaningly and in toilsome wise, as
was his wont, but eagerly, as goeth one to meet his bride, or unto some
sweet reward. And the Father Miguel stood long, looking after him and
being sorely troubled in mind; for he knew not what interpretation he
should make of all these things. And anon the Jew was lost to sight in
the forest.
But once, a little space thereafter, while that José Conejos, the Castilian,
clambered up the yonder mountain-side, he saw amid the grasses there
the dead and withered body of an aged man, and thereupon forthwith
made he such clamor that Don Esclevador hastened thither and saw it
was the Jew; and since there was no sign that wild beasts had wrought
evil with him, it was declared that the Jew had died of age and fatigue
and sorrow, albeit on the wrinkled face there was a smile of peace that
none had seen thereon while yet the Jew lived. And it was accounted to
be a most wondrous thing that, whereas never before had flowers of
that kind been seen in those mountains, there now bloomed all round
about flowers of the dye of blood, which thing the noble Don
Esclevador took full wisely to be a symbol of our dear Lord's most
precious blood, whereby not only you and I but even the Jew shall be
redeemed to Paradise.
Within the spot where they had found the Jew they buried him, and
there he sleeps unto this very day. Above the grave the Father Miguel
said a prayer; and the ground of that mountain they adjudged to be holy
ground; but over the grave wherein lay the Jew they set up neither cross
nor symbol of any kind, fearing to offend their holy faith.
But that very night, when that they were returned unto their camp half a

league distant, there arose a mighty tempest, and there was such an
upheaval and rending of the earth as only God's hand could make; and
there was a crashing and a groaning as if the world were smitten in
twain, and the winds fled through the valleys in dismay, and the trees
of the forest shrieked in terror and fell upon their faces. Then in the
morning when the tempest ceased and all the sky was calm and radiant
they saw that an impassable chasm lay between them and that
mountain-side wherein the Jew slept the sleep of death; that God had
traced with his finger a mighty gulf about that holy ground which held
the bones of the transgressor. Between heaven and earth hung that
lonely grave, nor could any foot scale the precipice that guarded it; but
one might see that the spot was beautiful with kindly mountain verdure
and that flowers of blood-red dye bloomed in that lonely place.
This was the happening in a summer-time a many years ago; to the
mellow grace of that summer succeeded the purple glory of the autumn,
and then came on apace the hoary dignity of winter. But the earth hath
its resurrection too, and anon came the beauteous spring-time with
warmth and scents and new life. The brooks leapt forth once more from
their hiding-places, the verdure awaked, and the trees put forth their
foliage. Then from the awful mountain peaks the snow silently and
slowly slipped to the valleys, and in divers natural channels went
onward and ever downward to the southern sea, and now at last 't was
summer-time again and the mellow grace of August brooded over the
earth. But in that yonder mountain-side had fallen a symbol never to be
removed,--ay, upon that holy ground where slept the Jew was stretched
a cross, a mighty cross of snow on which the sun never fell and which
no breath of wind ever disturbed. Elsewhere was the tender warmth of
verdure and the sacred passion of the blood-red flowers, but over that
lonely grave was stretched the symbol of him that went his way to
Calvary, and in that grave slept the Jew.
Mightily marvelled Don Esclevador and his