He turned as if in a dream, his naked feet making no sound as he brushed, light as the dawn, past the ranks of lilies. There was a woman yonder. She was weeping with a smothered sound of long-drawn sobs. Tor laughed softly in his joy. “He is alive!” he repeated under his breath.
Then he saw with wonder that the woman was no longer alone. She was speaking to the Risen One, her voice wrenched with sobbing: “Sir, if thou hast borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.”
The child’s Christ-touched eyes knew him though the woman did not. He sank to his knees, his face shining with the dazzling light of the new day.
CHAPTER XII
BY GENNESARET WATER
To Peter, broken in spirit, bowed down with the shame of his thrice-repeated denials, sleepless with torturing memories of his dead Master, came Mary of Magdala at dawn of the first day of the week. “They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb,” she sobbed, “and I know not where they have laid him.”
Peter arose at that word and girded his garments about him that he might run swiftly to the spot. He had no thought of what he should do, but a blind anguish of desire to serve the [pg 176]Master he had scorned drove him forth like a scourge.
He scarce noticed that John, the beloved disciple, was with him, running evenly at his side. Then some murmured word of that other disciple brought a faint memory of words spoken and straightway forgotten, words of painful prophecy, of unearthly hope, which he himself had rejected with scorn and impatience. The Galilean faltered, lagged behind. And so it came to pass that John was first to reach the open tomb.
The rosy light of the new day shone softly into the shadowy sepulchre, revealing the rough-hewn walls, the shallow niche wherein the body had lain, the folded cere-cloths, the scattered spices. The place was fragrant, bright, mysteriously empty.