“Where is he, Lord? where is he?  Hast thou deprived me of the power once bestowed, to see and hear him through the vastness of intervening space?  Oh, in this mighty moment, restore me that divine gift—­for the more I feel these human infirmities, which I hail and bless as the end of my eternity of ills, the more my sight loses the power to traverse immensity, and my ear to catch the sound of that wanderer’s accent, from the other extremity of the globe?”

Night had fallen, dark and stormy.  The wind rose in the midst of the great pine-trees.  Behind their black summits, through masses of dark cloud, slowly sailed the silver disk of the moon.  The invocation of the Wandering Jewess had perhaps been heard.  Suddenly, her eyes closed—­with hands clasped together, she remained kneeling in the heart of the ruins—­motionless as a statue upon a tomb.  And then she had a wondrous dream!

CHAPTER LI.

The Calvary.

This was the vision of Herodias:  On the summit of a high, steep, rocky mountain, there stands a cross.  The sun is sinking, even as when the Jewess herself, worn out with fatigue, entered the ruins of St. John’s Abbey.  The great figure on the cross—­which looks down from this Calvary, on the mountain, and on the vast, dreary plain beyond—­stands out white and pale against the dark, blue clouds, which stretch across the heavens, and assume a violent tint towards the horizon.  There, where the setting sun has left a long track of lurid light, almost of the hue of blood—­as far as the eye can reach, no vegetation appears on the surface of the gloomy desert, covered with sand and stones, like the ancient bed of some dried-up ocean.  A silence as of death broods over this desolate tract.  Sometimes, gigantic black vultures, with red unfeathered necks, luminous yellow eyes, stooping from their lofty flight in the midst of these solitudes, come to make their bloody feast on the prey they have carried off from less uncultivated regions.

How, then, did this Calvary, this place of prayer, come to be erected so far from the abodes of men?  This Calvary was prepared at a great cost by a repentant sinner.  He had done much harm to his fellow-creatures, and, in the hope of obtaining pardon for his crimes, he had climbed this mountain on his knees, and become a hermit, and lived there till his death, at the foot of this cross, only sheltered by a roof of thatch, now long since swept away by the wind.  The sun is still sinking.  The sky becomes darker.  The luminous lines on the horizon grow fainter and fainter, like heated bars of iron that gradually grow cool.  Suddenly, on the eastern side of the Calvary, is heard the noise of some falling stones, which, loosened from the side of the mountain, roll down rebounding to its base.  These stones have been loosened by the foot of a traveller, who, after traversing the plain below, has, during the last hour, been climbing the steep ascent.  He is not yet visible—­but one hears the echo of his tread—­slow, steady, and firm.  At length, he reaches the top of the mountain, and his tall figure stands out against the stormy sky.