to him; he fancied that
there were figures about him, watching him too, brushing his sleeve,
faces looking into his eyes, waiting for some action or word from him.
For a moment his sense of identity was lost; the violence of the
associations, and perhaps even the power of the emotions that had been
wrought there that day, crushed out his personality; it was surely he
who was here to suffer; all else was a dream and an illusion. From his
very effort of living in eternity, a habit had been formed that now
asserted itself; the laws of time and space and circumstance for the
moment ceased to exist; and he found himself for an eternal instant
facing his own agony and death.

* * * * *

Then with a rush facts re-asserted themselves, and he started and
looked round as the monk touched him on the arm.

"You have seen it," he said in a sharp undertone, "it is enough. We
shall be attacked." Chris paid him no heed beyond a look, and turned
once more.

It was here that they had suffered, these gallant knights of God; they
had stood below these beams, their feet on the cart that was their
chariot of glory, their necks in the rope that would be their heavenly
badge; they had looked out where he was looking as they made their
little speeches, over the faces to Tyburn-gate, with the same sun that
was now behind him, shining into their eyes.

He still stroked the rough beam; and as the details came home, and he
remembered that it was this that had borne their weight, he leaned and
kissed it; and a flood of tears blinded him.

Again the priest pulled his sleeve sharply.

"For God's sake, brother!" he said.

Chris turned to him.

"The cauldron," he said; "where was that?"

The priest made an impatient movement, but pointed to one side, away
from where the men were standing still watching them; and Chris saw
below, by the side of one of the streams a great blackened patch of
ground, and a heap of ashes.

The two went down there, for the other monk was thankful to get to any
less conspicuous place; and Chris presently found himself standing on
the edge of the black patch, with the trampled mud and grass beyond it
beside the stream. The grey wood ashes had drifted by now far across the
ground, but the heavy logs still lay there, charred and smoked, that had
blazed beneath the cauldron where the limbs of the monks had been
seethed; and he stared down at them, numbed and fascinated by the
horror o