Page:The centurion's story (IA centurionsstory00macf).pdf/43

 great hope in his breast. I myself was wandering on the mountainside in the raw night air because the spell of the Galilean lingering after death had caught upon my nerves, and yet I knew the man was dead. I knew the tomb was cold and silent and tenantless save by withering flesh. I was but waiting for the rising sun to proclaim the folly of Pilate's precautions, so I sought to rescue the young man from his delusions.

"Young man," I said, "among the Piets, far to the north in Britain, I have seen the bard, chanting the battle-songs of a nation, call back to life the dead warrior by the very fervour of his patriotic ecstasies. But the man had never died. The bard only called him back from the slower reaches of the dark river's flow before the swifter tides had gripped his soul. Yet the cry went out that the seer had raised the dead. In Egypt I have seen a conjuring priest seem to give back the dead to life. Once, by the Euphrates, I saw it again. Yet it was not what it seemed but instead a mere necromancy. Given any man who has power to wake the multitudes to enthusiastic devotion by the magic of his spell, and he will have art enough to earn a reputation as one who can call back the dead to life. But let me tell yon, while I have travelled far, I have never yet seen the prophet or magician who could put one single, living spasm in that heart through which a Roman spear has passed."

The young man looked at me soberly and weighed my words. He marked them and gave them credence, and yet, as his mind ran over those thoughts of which he had spoken to me, said solemnly:

"But these of which I speak were no necromancy."

I still felt my sympathy growing. He was so modest