“There is yet time to repent. If thou wilt but deny what thou hast said these many days, and return to us, thou shalt be forgiven and thy days shall be long among us, and thy children’s days after thee, and the Lord shall perchance have mercy and increase thy goods among thy fellows.”
“Let him alone,” said the rabbis. “He is unrepentant.”
“Lead me forth,” said Simon Abeles.
“Lead him forth,” repeated the rabbis. “Perchance, when he sees the manner of his death before his eyes, he will repent at the last.”
The boy’s fearless eyes looked from one to the other.
“Whatsoever it be,” he said, “I have but one life. Take it as you will. I die in the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ, and into His hands I commend my spirit—which you cannot take.”
“Lead him forth! Let him be crucified!” cried the rabbis together. “We will hear him no longer.”
Then Lazarus led his son away from them, and left them talking together and shaking their heads and wagging their filthy beards. And in the vision the scene changed. The chamber with its flickering lamp and its black table and all the men who were in it grew dim and faded away, and in its place there was a dim inner court between high houses, upon which only the windows of the house of Lazarus opened. There, upon the ground, stood a lantern of horn, and the soft yellow light of it fell upon two pieces of wood, nailed one upon the other to form a small cross—small, indeed, but yet tall enough and broad enough and strong enough to bear the slight burden of the boy’s frail body. And beside it stood Lazarus and Levi, the Short-handed, the strong rabbi, holding Simon Abeles between them. On the ground lay pieces of cord, ready, wherewith to bind him to the cross, for they held it unlawful to shed his blood.
It was soon done. The two men took up the cross and set it, with the body hanging thereon, against the wall of the narrow court, over against the house of Lazarus.
“Thou mayest still repent—during this night,” said the father, holding up the horn lantern and looking into his son’s tortured face.