to the wall for support.

The bars of the lattice shook; the old man peered out.

"Don't touch my house, you vagabond! Move on!" he cried.

Calcol had turned to Simon, who was raising the cross. "Carry it for him,"
he commanded.

Baba Barbulah still shook at the lattice. "Move on!" he repeated. "Seducer
of the people, remitter of sins, upholder of adultery, move on; don't
touch my house, it will fall down on you! Move on, I say!"

Calcol's command Simon had anticipated. He shouldered the cross. It was
heavier to him than to the Christ, not in weight, perhaps, but in purpose.
In the narrowness of the sook the crowd was impeded, but from the rear
they pushed, surprised at the halt.

Mary sprang at the lattice. "It is you that shall move on," she cried;
"yes, you; and forever. The desert will call to you, 'March;' and the sea
will snarl, 'Further yet.' The gates of cities will deny you, and the
doors of hamlets be closed. The eagles may return to their eyrie, the
panthers retreat to their lair, but you will have no home, no rest, and,
till time dies, no tomb."

The old man gnashed back at her an insult more bestial than he used
before, and spat at her through the bars. But Mary had turned to the
Christ. He was surrounded now by some women who had filtered through the
alley above. Johanna, Mary Clopas, the wife of Zebdia, and Bernice, a
fragile girl newly enrolled. The latter was wiping from his face the
stains of blood and dust. The others were beating their breasts, crying
aloud.

Of the disciples there was no trace, nor yet of any of those who had
greeted him as the Messiah. It may be that the admiring throngs that had
gathered about him had faded before a superior force. It may be they had
lost heart, belief perhaps as well. Invective never propitiates. Recently
he had omitted to prophesy, he argued. The exquisite parables with which
he had been wont to charm even the recalcitrant seemed to have been put
aside, and with them those wonders which rumor held him to have worked.
But now that pathos and grace which endeared, that perfection of sentiment
and expression which exalted the heart, returned to him, accentuated
perhaps by the agonies he had endured.

"Weep for me no more," he entreated. "But weep for yourselves and for your
children. The days are coming," he added, with a gesture at the impatient
mob--"the days are coming in which they shall say to the mountains, Fall on
us; to the hills, Cover us. For i