"Young Rabbi Samuel is come to life! He is no longer dead! You will soon see him, for they are escorting him back to the city, and everybody is mad with joy. Where is Ruth, the maiden? I am come to tell her the glorious news."
With emotion that I cannot describe, hardly believing what I heard, I hastened to Ruth, in order to prevent the effects of too sudden joy. Upon reaching the apartment, I found that the voice of Elec, who had shouted the news of which he was the bearer into her ears, had aroused her from her stupor of grief. She was looking at him wildly and incomprehensively. I ran to her, and folding her in my arms, said:
"Dear Ruth, there is news—good news! It must be true! Hear the shouts of gladness in all the town!"
"Lives!" she repeated, shaking her head. "No—no—no! Yes, there!" she said, raising her beautiful, glittering eyes to heaven and pointing upward.
"But on earth also!" cried Elec, with positiveness. "I saw him sit up, and heard him speak, as well as ever he was!"
"How was it? Let me know all!" I cried.
"How? Who could have done such a miracle but the mighty Prophet we saw at Jerusalem!" he answered.
"Jesus?" I exclaimed, with joy.
"Who else could it be. Yes, he met the bier just outside the— But here they come!"
Elec was interrupted in his narrative by the increased noise of voices in the streets and the tramp of hundreds of feet. The next moment the room was filled with a crowd of the most excited persons, some weeping, some laughing, as if beside themselves. In their midst I beheld Samuel walking, alive and well! his mother clinging to him, like a vine upon an oak.