Page:When It Was Dark.djvu/349

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By the Tower of Hippicus
329

the cold, dark waters of Hezekiah's Pool became bright and golden.

The sacred places focussed the light and sprang into a new life.

He made the sign of the Cross, wondering fancifully if this were an omen.

Then with a shudder he looked to the left towards the ogre-grey Turkish battlements of the Damascus Gate.

It was there, over by the Temple Quarries of Bezetha, the New Tomb of Joseph lay.

Yes! straight away to the north lay the rock-hewn sepulchre where the great doctors had sorrowfully pronounced the end of so many Christian hopes.

How difficult to believe that so short a distance away lay the centre of the world's trouble! Surely he could actually distinguish the guard-house in the wall which had been built round the spot.

Over the sad Oriental city—for Jerusalem is always sad, as if the ancient stones were still conscious of Christ's passion—he gazed towards the terrible place, wondering, hoping, fearing.


· · · · · · · ·

It was very difficult to know how to begin upon this extraordinary affair.

When he had made the first meal of the day and was confronted with the business, with the actual fact of what he had to do, he was aghast at what seemed his own powerlessness.

He had no plan of action, no method. For an hour he felt absolutely hopeless.

Sir Robert Llwellyn, so his friends believed, had been in Jerusalem prior to the discovery of the New Tomb.

The first duty of the investigator was to find out whether that was true.