ion: iota, omega, nu.
Iouoaion: (soft breathing mark) Iota, omicron, upsilon, (soft breathing mark) omicron, alpha, iota, omega, nu.]
CHAPTER XXXII
BY THIS SIGN
At the side of a roadway leading up the sloping ascent of a bald hill, on the outskirts of Jerusalem, stood a rock, which by the stone rolled against it, was evidently a tomb of ancient days. This roadway, which had been tramped into fine dust by the tread of many feet, ran along the edge of a ravine, the far side of which was cut with sepulchres and fissured into narrow caves. Just beyond the tomb, the road turned to the top of the hill which was hidden by a solitary dying olive that cast its black branches across a pile of bleached gray rock. On this bald hill three crosses had been set up and since sunrise a vast crowd had thronged the roadway, for it had early become news that he who had been acclaimed King of the Jews had been hanged between two thieves, and many there were who were curious to see the sad plight of the King.
As the mocking crowd surged about the hill-top, and the sun was shining high in the heavens, the victim on the center cross uttered a cry which seemed to vibrate into the very element and turn the light of midday into impenetrable darkness and shake the earth with a mighty trembling. Rocks rattled down the ravine; tomb-doors were shaken from their holdings; the moaning of wind, like a dying breath, passed the length of the valley below and from the black depths a leper cried, "Unclean! Unclean!" his despairing wail answered by the scream of a maniac.
In the midst of the darkness there were fitful outbursts of dull green light, like the expiring effort of a perishing sun, and in these ghostly gleams people could be seen running to and fro. Among them were a woman and a man; the woman wrapped in a long cloak, the man, mighty in size, with scarce enough garments to cover his body, but to these the woman clung as they crept behind the wayside rock for shelter. Scarcely had they settled close to the rock than it began to tremble, and then the stone rolled away from before it and a skeleton toppled out, falling at the very feet of the woman.
With a scream she cried, "My dream! My dream! Even now it cometh to pass! Help! Help!"
The man drew the woman away from the skeleton and closer to the trembling rock.
"Even the dead come forth!" she wailed. "It is the end of all things! By the death of us all shall the gods avenge the death of the Jew! Oh, my eunuch, save me! Thou art strong! Thou wert a follower and a believer. Save me!" and she threw herself into his arms.