urned and cast
his eyes on the near-by shore reaching away from his feet in every
direction.

In the slanting rays of the rising sun, this bit of beach looked like a
monster honeycomb, each shapen place the broken track of a human foot.
It was here the day before, Jesus of Nazareth had talked to a vast
concourse of people. So insistent were they in getting close to him,
he took to a boat, and even then men crowded knee-deep into the quiet
water to hear his teachings, so strangely different from that of the
Temple priests. All sign of the multitude was now gone but the far
reach of footprints. At no great distance from where the lone man
stood, a pile of rock jutted into the water behind which was a secluded
spot known to the man on the shore and to which he now went, making his
way around the point on half submerged stones. Farther down the shore
was a line of rushes and willows growing by a wady that in wet season
turned a small stream into the sea.

The man who had sought seclusion behind the pile of rock had scarcely
found time for meditation or for prayer, when a second figure came upon
the sand, the figure of a woman. As she approached, the stillness was
not broken by so much as the call of a bird. Yet the man behind the
wall of rocks moved that he might watch her, yet himself remain unseen.
Slowly and painfully she moved the burden of a wasted and diseased body
toward the water's edge, looking about with the caution of a wounded
beast. One of her arms was covered with sores. The knee joint of a
leg, around which she put both hands from time to time, was swollen to
great size. Her eyes were sunken in a colorless face. Her hair was
thin and uneven and her garments were tattered and stained with soil.

Reaching the edge of the water she sat down, putting her leg in place
with her two hands. Then she began digging in the soft sand and soon
there was a bowl of water before her. She bathed her face and poured
water on her sores. Again she looked cautiously about and listened.
All was still. She hurriedly drew off her bodice and put it in the
bowl of water, but before she had finished cleansing it she was
startled by the sound of a dipping oar quite near, then from behind the
line of rushes a small fishing boat came into view. Folding her arms
across her breast and bending low to hide her nakedness, the woman in a
shrill voice cried, "Unclean! Unclean!"

The fisherman instinctively pulled away a littl