And it became quite still within the church; only a slight wave-like
motion swept through the mob.

Then one from among the strangers, a young monk, rose up and spoke. He
was pale as a sheet of linen, his black eyes glowed like coals, which
are just going to die out, and the gloomy, pain-hardened lines around
his mouth were as if carven in wood with a knife, and not like the folds
in the face of a human being.

He raised his thin, sickly hands toward heaven in prayer, and the
sleeves of his robe slipped down over his lean, white arms.

Then he spoke.

Of hell he spoke, that it is infinite as heaven is infinite, of the
lonely world of torments which each one of the condemned must endure and
fill with his wails. Seas of sulphur were there, fields of scorpions,
flames that wrap themselves round a person like a cloak, and silent
flames that have hardened and plunged into the body like a spear twisted
round in a wound.

It was quite still; breathlessly they listened to his words, for he
spoke as if he had seen it with his own eyes, and they asked themselves:
is he one of the condemned, sent up to us from the caverns of hell to
bear witness before us?

Then he preached for a long time concerning the law and the power of
the law, that its every title must be fulfilled, and that every
transgression of which they were guilty would be counted against them
by grain and ounce. "But Christ died for our sins, say ye, and we are no
longer subject to the law. But I say unto you, hell will not be cheated
of a single one of you, and not a single iron tooth of the torture
wheel of hell shall pass beside your flesh. You build upon the cross of
Golgotha, come, come! Come and look at it! I shall lead you straight to
its foot. It was on a Friday, as you know, that they thrust Him out
of one of their gates and laid the heavier end of a cross upon His
shoulders. They made Him bear it to a barren and unfruitful hill without
the city, and in crowds they followed Him, whirling up the dust with
their many feet so that it seemed a red cloud was over the place. And
they tore the garments from Him and bared His body, as the lords of the
law have a malefactor exposed before the eyes of all, so that all may
see the flesh that is to be committed to torture. And they flung Him on
the cross and stretched Him out and they drove a nail of iron through
each of His resistant hands and a nail through His crossed feet. With
clubs they struck the nails t