Peter stared in at the small, still, empty place, those half-awakened memories stirring strangely within him. “When I have arisen from the dead,” he murmured half unconsciously. Had the Master indeed uttered those strange words, or was his brain touched with some sweet madness? He turned to John. The eyes of the beloved disciple were fastened upon the empty niche, his lips moved as in prayer.
With sudden, hard-won resolution Peter entered the tomb, stooping to look more closely at the chill, empty bed with its array of fair linen and odorous spicery. He noticed with an awed tightening of the throat that the fine linen napkin which had been wound about the dead man’s head was not lying with the other cerements, but was folded carefully apart, as if the wearer, sitting upon [pg 178]the edge of his couch, had placed it there with a tender thought of the giver.
His bewildered, grief-stricken eyes met the look of dawning hope in the eyes of the other. “He is not here,” murmured John, “he is risen!” And on a sudden his face became radiant with angelic beauty.
Then the two went away in wondering silence to their own house, and as they went they met other women of their company who told them of angels waiting within the tomb with that question which still sounds in ears grief-sealed against the truth of Omnipresent Life: “Why seek ye the living among the dead? Go, tell his disciples and Peter, He goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said unto you.”
To Galilee, therefore, after certain days of growing hope and marvelous [pg 179]vision, the disciples journeyed in great numbers, and with them went a certain small lad, of a joyous and shining face, no longer a homeless beggar of Jerusalem, but a brother beloved because he had looked upon the King in the beauty of his resurrection body.
It was one of the women, called Salome, who first came upon the child as he walked slowly toward Jerusalem in the dawning day. The little lad was chanting softly to himself the words he had learned on the day of his healing: “Hosanna! Hosanna in the highest! Blessed—blessed is he that cometh in the name of the King!”
“Why dost thou sing, child?” asked the woman querulously. She was still bearing the burden of spicery which she had fetched to the empty tomb, and her eyes were red with weeping and anxiety.
“I sing,” answered Tor, “because my Master, the King, is alive. He opened my eyes, which were blind as night, and with these eyes have I seen him—alive! Therefore, I sing.”
The woman shook her head sorrowfully, for the thing was yet too wonderful for her understanding. “I have seen the empty tomb,” she said. “Also I beheld a young man clad in white garments, who declared to us that he was alive; but I know not what to think. How can it be that he is alive when he was dead—crucified—pierced with a spear?” And again she wept bitterly.
“I saw him,” said Tor simply,—“the man who opened my eyes. He is alive. I am going to Galilee to see him.” And once more the child cried, “Hosanna!” with a clear, jubilant voice.