storm. After giving
them some myrrh and vinegar, they stripped off their ragged clothing,
tied ropes round their arms, and by the help of small ladders dragged
them up to their places on the cross. The executioners then bound the
arms of the thieves to the cross, with cords made of the bark of trees,
and fastened their wrists, elbows, knees, and feet in like manner,
drawing the cords so tight that their joints cracked, and the blood
burst out. They uttered piercing cries, and the good thief exclaimed as
they were drawing him up, 'This torture is dreadful, but if they had
treated us as they treated the poor Galilean, we should have been dead
long ago.'

The executioners had divided the garments of Jesus, in order to draw
lots for them; his mantle, which was narrow at the top, was very wide
at the bottom, and lined over the chest, thus forming a pocket between
the lining and the material itself; the lining they pulled out, tore
into bands, and divided. They did the same with his long white robe,
belt, scapular, and under-garment, which was completely saturated with
his Sacred Blood. Not being able to agree as to who was to be the
possessor of the seamless robe woven by his Mother, which could not be
cut up and divided, they brought out a species of chessboard marked
with figures, and were about to decide the point by lots, when a
messenger, sent by Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, informed them
that there were persons ready to purchase all the clothes of Jesus;
they therefore gathered them together and sold them in a bundle. Thus
did the Christians get possession of these precious relics.

CHAPTER XLI.

Jesus hanging on the Cross between two Thieves.

The tremendous concussion caused by the fall of the cross into the
hole prepared for it drove the sharp points of the crown of thorns,
which was still upon the head of our dear Saviour, still deeper into
his sacred flesh, and blood ran down again in streams, both from it and
from his hands and feet. The archers then placed ladders against the
sides of the cross, mounted them and unfastened the ropes with which
they had bound our Lord to the cross, previous to lifting it up,
fearing that the shock might tear open the wounds in his hands and
feet, and that then the nails would no longer support his body. His
blood had become, in a certain degree, stagnated by his horizontal
position and the pressure of the cords, but when these were withdrawn,
it resumed its usu