ast 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 Jose 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
mou