they saw something hang there, even upon its cross, in the form of a
man, and they came from their houses, and the whole space beneath
was filled with people, who stood gazing up at the marvel. A
MIRACLE! A MIRACLE! they cried; and truly it was no miracle--it was
only me Ahasuerus, the wanderer taking thought concerning his crime
against the crucified. Then came a great light all about me, such
light for shining as I had never before beheld, and indeed I saw it
not all with my eyes, but the greater part with my soul, which
surely is the light of the eyes themselves. And I said to myself,
Doubtless the Lord is at hand, and he cometh to me as late to the
blessed Saul of Tarsus, who was NOT the chief of sinners, but
I--Ahasuerus, the accursed. And the thunder burst like the bursting
of a world in the furnace of the sun; and whether it was that the
lightning struck me, or that I dropped, as was my custom, outwearied
from the cross, I know not, but thereafter I lay at its foot among
the pinnacles, and when the people looked again, the miracle was
over, and they returned to their houses and slept. And the next day,
when I sought the comfort of the bath, I found upon my side the
figure of a cross, and the form of a man hanging thereupon as I had
hung, depainted in a dark colour as of lead plain upon the flesh of
my side over my heart. Here was a miracle indeed! but verily I knew
not whether therefrom to gather comfort or despair.

"'And it was night as I went into a village among the mountains,
through the desert places of which I had all that day been
wandering. And never before had my condition seemed to me so
hopeless. There was not one left upon the earth who had ever seen me
knowing me, and although there went a tale of such a man as I, yet
faith had so far vanished from the earth that for a thing to be
marvellous, however just, was sufficient reason wherefore no man, to