"You have heard the tidings of great joy, O Adina?"
"Can they be true, Martha?" I asked, earnestly.
"Yes, for I have seen him walking, heard his voice, and touched him! You, also, shall see him, for he hath sent us to tell his disciples!"
I wept for joy!
At the gateway we met Mary of Bethany, and we three now hastened together towards the garden of Joseph, I wishing my feet wings, that I might reach the sepulchre sooner, fearing that the vision of Jesus would be vanished ere I arrived. As we were going out of the gate, we were met by four or five Roman soldiers, who, with aspects stamped with fear, were running past us into the city.
"What means this flight and terror, men?" cried the captain of the gate. "You fly as if you were in full retreat from an enemy. Speak, Marius! You seem to have your senses!" he demanded of the youngest of the soldiers, an officer under a centurion.
We paused to hear what he said.
"Per Dian, captain! we have been terrified beyond measure," answered the soldier. "My heart beats yet, as if it were an alarum-drum. You see, we were a part of the guard left in charge of the sepulchre of this Jewish Prophet, crucified three days ago. Before dawn this morning, as I was pacing to and fro before the tomb, there suddenly shone round about us a light, like a descending meteor, accompanied by a rushing as if of a legion of wings. The men started to their feet in amazement! On looking about us I saw a dazzling form, in the mid-heavens, with broad wings of gold, sparkling with myriads of stars, every feather a star, and clad in raiment white and gleaming as the summer's lightning. This terrible presence, like that of one of the Dii Immortales, made us fear exceedingly, beyond any terror we had before experienced. But when we saw this mighty being descend straight towards the tomb, and beheld the resplendent majesty of his celestial visage, which blinded us, our hearts failed within us. The angel, or god, alighted amid a blaze of radiance at the door of the sepulchre; and as his foot touched the earth it trembled, as if with a great earthquake. The soldiers shook with terror, and fell to the ground, before his presence, as dead men. I stood, unable to move, frozen by fear to a statue. He touched the great stone door with one of his fingers, and it rolled outward at his feet, as if a catapult had struck it, and, like Jove taking his throne, he sat upon it!
"But one thing more," continued the soldier, "was wanting to fill my cup of terror to the full. And it followed. I saw the crucified Prophet rise up from the slab on which he was laid, and stand upon his feet, and walk forth alive, with the tread of some mighty conqueror! The celestial being, so terrible in his majestic splendor, veiled his face with his wings before his presence, and prostrated himself at his feet, as if in homage to one greater than himself!