"Wilt thou renounce it?" asked the voice of Lazarus.

"_Kyrie eleison, Christie eleison!_" came the answer, brave and clear.

"Lay on, Levi, and let thy arm be strong!"

And again the sound of blows, regular, merciless, came up from the
bowels of the earth.

"Dost thou repent? Dost thou renounce? Dost thou deny?"

"I repent of my sins--I renounce your ways--I believe in the Lord--"

The sacred name was not heard. A smothered groan as of one losing
consciousness in extreme torture was all that came up from below.

"Lay on, Levi, lay on!"

"Nay," answered the strong rabbi, "the boy will die. Let us leave him
here for this night. Perchance cold and hunger will be more potent than
stripes, when he shall come to himself."

"As though sayest," answered the father in angry reluctance.

Again all was silent. Soon the rays of light ceased to shine through the
crevices of the outer shutters, and sleep descended upon the quarter
of the Jews. Still the scene in the vision changed not. After a long
stillness a clear young voice was heard speaking.

"Lord, if it be Thy will that I die, grant that I may bear all in Thy
name, grant that I, unworthy, may endure in this body the punishments
due to me in spirit for my sins. And if it be Thy will that I live, let
my life be used also for Thy glory."

The voice ceased and the cloud of passing time descended upon the vision
and was lifted again and again. And each time the same voice was heard
and the sound of torturing blows, but the voice of the boy was weaker
every night, though it was not less brave.

"I believe," it said, always. "Do what you will, you have power over the
body, but I have the Faith over which you have no power."

So the days and the nights passed, and though the prayer came up in
feeble tones, it was born of a mighty spirit and it rang in the ears
of the tormentors as the voice of an angel which they had no power to
silence, appealing from them to the tribunal of the Throne of God Most
High.

Day by day, also, the rabbis and the elders began to congregate together
at evening before the house of Lazarus and to talk with him and with
each other, debating how they might break the endurance of his son and
bring him again into the synagogue as one of themselves. Chief among
them in their councils was Levi, the Short-handed, devising new tortures
for the frail body to bear and boasting how he would conquer the
stubborn boy by the might of his hands to hurt.