all the
rolling pieces, regardless in his greed how the crowd trampled and trod
on him. A mother chid and struck her little brown curly child, because
he stretched his arms and turned his face towards the thorn-crowned
captive.

A priest of the temple, with a blood-stained knife thrust in his girdle,
dragged beside him, by the throat, a little tender lamb doomed for the
sacrifice.

A dancing woman with jewels in her ears, and half naked to the waist,
sounding the brazen cymbals above her head, drew a score of youths after
her in Barabbas' train.

On one of the flat roof tops, reclining on purple and fine linen,
looking down on the street below from the thick foliage of her citron
boughs and her red Syrian roses, was an Egyptian wanton; and leaning
beside her, tossing golden apples in her bosom, was a young centurion of
the Roman guard, languid and laughing, with his fair chest bare to the
heat, and his armour flung in a pile beside him.

And thus, in like manner, every figure bore its parable; and above all
was the hard, hot, cruel, cloudless sky of blue, without one faintest
mist to break its horrible serenity, whilst high in the azure ether and
against the sun, an eagle and a vulture fought, locked close, and
tearing at each other's breasts.

Six nights this conception occupied him. His days were not his own, he
spent them in a rough mechanical labour which his strength executed
while his mind was far away from it; but the nights were all his, and at
the end of the sixth night the thing arose, perfect as far as his hand
could perfect it; begotten by a chance and ignorant word as have been
many of the greatest works the world has seen;--oaks sprung from the
acorn that a careless child has let fall.

When he had finished it his arm dropped to his side, he stood
motionless; the red glow of the dawn lighting the depths of his
sleepless eyes.

* * *

It was a level green silent country which was round her, with little
loveliness and little colour; but as she went she laughed incessantly
in the delirious gladness of her liberty.

She tossed her head back to watch the flight of a single swallow; she
caught a handful of green leaves and buried her face in them. She
listened in a very agony of memory to the rippling moisture of a little
brook. She followed with her eyes the sweeping vapours of the
rain-clouds, and when a west wind rose and blew a cluster of loose apple
blossoms between her eyes-