The vision grew darker and a terrible stillness was over everything, for the church was not opened to the sight this time.  There was a horror of long waiting with the certainty of what was to come.  The narrow street was empty to the eye, and yet there was the knowledge of evil presence, of two strong men waiting in the dark to take their victim to the place of expiation.  And the horror grew in the silence and the emptiness, until it was unbearable.

The door opened and the boy was with the monk under the black arch.  The old man embraced him and blessed him and stood still for a moment watching him as he went down.  Then he, also, turned and went back, and the door was closed.

Swiftly the two men glided from their hiding-place and sped along the uneven pavement.  The boy paused and faced them, for he felt that he was taken.  They grasped him by the arms on each side, Lazarus his father, and Levi, surnamed the Short-handed, the strongest and the cruellest and the most relentless of the younger rabbis.  Their grip was rough, and the older man held a coarse woollen cloth in his hand with which to smother the boy’s cries if he should call out for help.  But he was very calm and did not resist them.

“What would you?” he asked.

“And what doest thou in a Christian church?” asked Lazarus in low fierce tones.

“What Christians do, since I am one of them,” answered the youth, unmoved.

Lazarus said nothing, but he struck the boy on the mouth with his hard hand so that the blood ran down.

“Not here!” exclaimed Levi, anxiously looking about.

And they hurried him away through dark and narrow lanes.  He opposed no resistance to Levi’s rough strength, not only suffering himself to be dragged along but doing his best to keep pace with the man’s long strides, nor did he murmur at the blows and thrusts dealt him from time to time by his father from the other side.  During some minutes they were still traversing the Christian part of the city.  A single loud cry for help would have brought a rescue, a few words to the rescuers would have roused a mob of fierce men and the two Jews would have paid with their lives for the deeds they had not yet committed.  But Simon Abeles uttered no cry and offered no resistance.  He had said that he feared not death, and he had spoken the truth, not knowing what manner of death was to be his.  Onward they sped, and in the vision the way they traversed seemed to sweep past them, so that they remained always in sight though always hurrying on.  The Christian quarter was passed; before them hung the chain of one of those gates which gave access to the city of the Jews.  With a jeer and an oath the bearded sentry watched them pass—­the martyr and his torturers.  One word to him, even then, and the butt of his heavy halberd would have broken Levi’s arm and laid the boy’s father in the dust.  The word was not spoken.  On through the filthy ways, on and on, through narrow courts and tortuous passages to a dark low doorway.  Then, again, the vision showed but an empty street and there was silence for a space, and a horror of long waiting in the falling night.