Five hundred feet distant, in the beleaguered Nazarene settlement, a woman stood in her doorway to pray, that the earthen roof might not be between her supplication and the Master in Heaven. She saw the microscopic figure on the pylon of the Temple, but daily a priest came there to worship the sun. She saw the figure lift and extend its arms, presently, but that was part of the idolatrous ritual, she thought. She dropped her eyes to the crucifix in her hands and her lips moved slowly.
At that instant, at her feet, as a thunderbolt strikes from the clouds, an arrow plunged half its length into the hard sand, and leaned, quivering strongly toward the tiny shape on the summit of the pylon.
The Nazarene woman dropped her crucifix and shrieked.
The slow fisher-husband appeared beside her, and, seeing the fallen cross, picked it up with fumbling fingers, muttering an exclamation of remonstrance.
"Look!" the Nazarene woman cried, pointing to the half-buried bolt, still quivering.
The fisherman gazed at it.
"Whence came it?" he asked.
The trembling woman shook her head and clasped and unclasped her hands.
"An affront from the heathen," the man said. "It was despatched to murder thee. The Lord's hand stayed it; blessed be His name!"
He plucked the arrow with an effort from the sand, and looked at it.