Page:The centurion's story (IA centurionsstory00macf).pdf/46

 In a dozen paces, I came face to face with another soldier, fleeing like the first. It was Stephen, the hard-featured Galician who plunged the spear in the side of the Jew upon the cross. I seized him by the throat and forced him to his knees. "Coward," I said, "what have you seen?" "Seen?" he muttered. "Seen?" he gasped. "We have seen nothing, but a golden cloud that hangs above the tomb and there is life within the tomb. We have heard a rustling within and the voices of men." "Is the seal broken?" I asked, and flung him from me and rushed to the tomb.

But when I reached the area of the golden cloud, I halted as quickly as I had started. There came to me a feeling that I trod on holy ground, that I was about to see that which it was not permitted a man to see. With slow and faltering steps, I approached the tomb. There was music in the air. I could not tell you whence it came, but now, as before I had caught that strange rustling sound on the whole hillside, there was a sound of celestial harmonies. I looked about me. My senses were abnormally quickened. Nothing escaped me. Far down below, I heard the passage of another frightened soldier as, with his arms, he clambered, clanking, over the wall, but all around me, the hillside was caught in the spell of music. Every branch and blade of grass and shivering petal of a flower was now vibrating with this strange, invisible, indescribable harmony that struck a rhythm from the heart-strings of my soul.

I approached the tomb and laid my hand upon the stone. It had been rolled back. It was no longer cold, but warm. I swear it was warm to the touch. My soul quaked within me, my heart stood still.