He returned to his cave in the ruined wall, and lay down on his matting, not to sleep, nor even to plan intelligently, but to submit to his distress.
At high noon the third day, on the summit of the Serapeum in Egyptian Rhacotis, there appeared a slender figure in the burnoose of an Arab.
Five hundred feet distant, in the beleaguered Nazarene settlement, a woman stood in her doorway to pray, that the earthen roof might not be between her supplication and the Master in Heaven. She saw the microscopic figure on the pylon of the Temple, but daily a priest came there to worship the sun. She saw the figure lift and extend its arms, presently, but that was part of the idolatrous ritual, she thought. She dropped her eyes to the crucifix in her hands and her lips moved slowly.
At that instant, at her feet, as a thunderbolt strikes from the clouds, an arrow plunged half its length into the hard sand, and leaned, quivering strongly toward the tiny shape on the summit of the pylon.
The Nazarene woman dropped her crucifix and shrieked.
The slow fisher-husband appeared beside her, and, seeing the fallen cross, picked it up with fumbling fingers, muttering an exclamation of remonstrance.
"Look!" the Nazarene woman cried, pointing to the half-buried bolt, still quivering.
The trembling woman shook her head and clasped and unclasped her hands.
"An affront from the heathen," the man said. "It was despatched to murder thee. The Lord's hand stayed it; blessed be His name!"
He plucked the arrow with an effort from the sand, and looked at it.
"It is a witness of the Master's care; let us take it to the pastor," he suggested.
The trembling woman followed her husband as he stepped into the street and raised her eyes to give thanks. She saw that the figure on the summit of the pylon was gone.
The two found the leader of their flock, sitting outside an overcrowded house, bending over a half-finished basket of reeds. Beside him was one complete; at the other hand were his working materials.
"Greeting, children, in Christ's name," he said.
"Greeting, lord; praise to God in the highest!"
The Nazarene woman dropped to her knees, and her husband, extending the arrow in agitation, stumbled through their story.