Page:The centurion's story (IA centurionsstory00macf).pdf/50

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

piece of papyrus at hand, Marcus, and send it to me by swiftest military post, or I shall hold that never it was done, and that in this folded head-tire is a voice that cries out like thunder that my senses were not deceived and my memory does not stumble on the way to perfect recollection.

In truth, Marcus, all raillery forgot, what I saw confirmed the memory of my glorious vision.

The Jew was alive. His body thrilled again with life. His cold and pulseless corpse was not stolen from the tomb by the craven hearts of fear-stricken men, but he rose as men wake from slumber, and walked forth warm and glowing with the glister of a different existence, for the glory of the Man, which mine eyes had seen for a moment, was the glory of God himself. The ordered linen cloths, the heaped up myrrh and aloes, the creased and folded head-dress all proclaimed that angels had come to serve him and for a moment this rock-hewn crypt had become the tiring room of the son of the Immortal.

To set down what I saw in a single glance, to record what I felt in one uprising tide of conviction ere I had taken a second breath of the heavy air of the tomb has required, lo, these many words; but in my next glance I surveyed these close friends of the man. Was there a plot to steal his body, and they did not know? Were women hurrying to the place the instant the guard was relieved, with spices and perfumes? All the while the body was speeding off Galileeward through some unfrequented cleft of the northern hills? Ask thyself, Marcus, as I have done, can it be so considered?