eyes close, the death gasp seems in each throat. Then all look up, all are again serene, all this in the time of a breath. The hands stretch out as in death, the legs stiffen, the Techrechim are still, the wind was lulled again. There is peace on earth as there is in heaven and in the breast.
The dying apostate rises to his feet,
looks wildly round, clinging to a grave- stone, looks, gives one shriek of agonizing terror, then sinks, sinks to the earth.
Higher rises the last line of the triumphant, defiant death strain. Up to heaven wings its flight this simple sentence. The birds carry this song across the world, up, up goes Israel's swan song of Glory:
CHAPTER XXVIII.
LIFE AGAIN.
In the cemetery the day broke calm and sweet after the gloom of the night. In the rolling mist glinted the lights of lanterns. And on earth fell the sounds of many feet. Grey shadows came out of the shade, masses of shadow silhouetted against a blacker background were moving. The trample of many feet gave way to orderly marching, the glow of the swinging lanterns paled in the daylight.
Yet stood the congregation silent, they understood nothing but that death was at hand, all these noises might be false sounds, allurements of Satan to draw off from the only thoughts they had a right to think at that moment. Yet who knows who dare probe the bottom, who would analyse the ideas of a multitude patiently listening for the rustle of Azarel's wings?
"The Archbishop having witnessed your heroic stolidity in the hour of death makes known to you that it is his gracious will to protect you. To this purpose I call you one and all to leave this cemetery and to proceed without delay beyond to the town gates where you will no longer be molested," so cried a herald, who entered the cemetery during the morning mist to the bewildered people.
There was a strange movement in the congregation, a shiver passed through one and all ,then mothers clasped to
their bosoms their children and fathers struggling with emotion embraced their wives in an intensity of feeling only known to a few, the reprieved guiltless.
Humanity asserted itself as the congregation of the dead returned to life; shrouds were cast aside, brief prayers of thankfulness were offered up; and then the ranks inspected, a few were missing; what had become of them? The day told the tale of weakness and the few that had become apostates paid for their weakness—not at Jewish hands—the penalty being death.
A procession was formed of the mourning host, for the boon of life had lost half its value after the intense emotions of the night, and slowly Rabbi and people, guarded by soldiers of the empire, made their way out of the good city of Frankfort by the Fisherman's Gate.
A stray visitor of the cemetery, a soldier making investigations for the Court, next day found, some twenty feet from where the earth was mudded by the tramp of many feet, the Ram nibbling a frayed jerkin. Nearer inspection revealed a dead body, the corpse of one who had evidently died in a convulsion. The body was cramped and bent and the clenched hands were filled with grass with which also the hair was matted.