The priest led me up the tiny track that led to the path by the mountains, not far from the cross-roads that led to the calaboose of Nuke Hiva. I began to wonder what on earth it could all mean, for the old priest had a strange look on his face and was running his fingers through his beads.
Suddenly he turned to me and said, in a cracked voice: “My son, lift thine eyes, and breathe the hallowed name of Him who died for sinners.”
I made a mighty effort and obeyed. After I had looked up at the sky with due decorum, he looked stealthily around him, and said in a tense whisper: “My son, to think I have dwelt so near and never known.”
“Known what, Father?” I ejaculated, my heart full of wonder. (I noticed that his eyes were unearthly bright.)
“My son,” he said, in a hushed voice, “it is here where our Lord Jesus Christ died! I have discovered the remains of the old Cross!”
“No! Never!” I ejaculated, as he fell on his knees and lifted up a large lump of grey coral stone. I admit that it looked like the remnant of some tomb’s edifice. Under the influence of the Father’s earnest manner I was thrilled with curious wonder as I stared at the lump of stone. My belief at that moment was as firm as the rock that the priest still held.
“’Tis the very stone, the cross that our Redeemer was crucified upon,” said he, as he stared at me.
“How did it come here, all the way from Jerusalem?” I said, in a hushed voice, as I gazed on the sacred relic.
“I know not, my son, but there it is. Canst thou not see it with thine own eyes?”
“Assuredly I can, Father,” I murmured, as I looked at that old stone, and thought how like an ordinary cross stone off a mortal’s grave it seemed. True enough, the cemetery was close by, the spot where they buried sad, home-sick men, women and children—and did she not lie there, the dead convict girl?