Origin of the Brunists

Prologue: The Sacrifice

Hiram Clegg, together with his wife Emma and four friends of the faith from Randolph Junction, were summoned by the Spirit and Mrs. Clara Collins, widow of the beloved Nazarene preacher Ely Collins, to West Condon on the weekend of the eighteenth and nineteenth of April, there to await the End of the World. What did he really expect? The Final Judgment, perhaps. Something, certainly, of importance. What he did not expect was to find himself standing on the night of Saturday the eighteenth — the Night, as it turned out, of the Sacrifice — in a ditch alongside the old road to Deepwater Number Nine Coalmine, watching a young girl die. He had been prepared, as only a man of great but simple faith can be prepared, for profound and terrifying events, but he had not been prepared for that. He couldn’t even remember much of it later on, so squeezed had his mind been by plain awe. The crowd all came out of their cars and stood around, some up on the lip of the ditch, others, like himself, down near the girl, down where the long grass threw black spiked shadows. Some stared as though not seeing her. Some wept hysterically, knelt to pray. None, surely, were unmoved. He recalled seeing Mrs. Eleanor Norton at one point lying in the roadway as though dead, her husband fanning her desperately with the hem of his white tunic. Yes, oddly, Hiram retained that pointless detail: Dr. Norton’s fat knees planted painfully in the ruts and cinders of the old mine road, revealed like a secret signal with every flap of the tunic hem. But the rest of it remained forever obscure to him, lost in the mad crisscross of headlight beams, a dreamlike conjuring of happenings that whirled in a fantastical circle with neither beginning nor end.

They had anticipated, on arriving that afternoon at the home of the coalminer-visionary Giovanni Bruno, a small group of believers, such as they had seen witnessing on television, but they encountered instead literally hundreds of people milling about. At least half of them, Hiram noted, were newspaper, radio, and television people: many cameras, much light, an unbelievable excitement. He went looking immediately for Sister Clara, found her speaking animatedly with a group of people, like himself dressed in streetclothes, yet with the unmistakable quality of the Church of the Nazarene about them. “Sister Clara!”

“Brother Hiram!” Clara cried, and hurried toward him to take his hand in both of hers. “How wonderful! You’ve come!”

“Yes, after all you told me, Sister Clara, I could hardly stay away.”

She introduced him to the group, friends of the faith from New Bridgeport. Hiram had never seen Clara so inspirited. She spoke glowingly of all their plans, of all the wonderful people who had answered the call, of this great moment that was gloriously upon them. Hiram, in turn, told her he had brought five persons with him, including his wife Emma.

“Well, we still don’t have tunics for everybody,” Clara said. “We plain didn’t expect so many folks, Hiram. But I can give you two now for you and Emma, and maybe we’ll get enough more done by tomorrow for the rest.” She led him to a bedroom close by and presented him with the tunics, took a moment to explain some of the marvelous things that had transpired in that room, that very room, in the turbulent fourteen weeks just past.

“It is so … so humble, Sister Clara,” Hiram remarked. “So appropriate.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “This house has been like our second home.” She paused, her strong face sunk for a moment in memory and grief. “I lost my own home, you know, mine and Ely’s.”

“Yes, so you told me. And yet it is, as you yourself said, Sister Clara, but one more sign among the many, one more assurance in the contest with doubt.”

“Yes, but I got to admit, it hurt me, Hiram.”

“It would have hurt any of us, Clara. You have borne the strain of these awesome months like a true saint.” She did not reply, seemed absorbed in her own thoughts. “These tunics, do we just put them on over our—?”

“No, but see Ben about that. He’ll direct you where to change and all.”

And so then he led Clara over to where Emma and the others were waiting. He was deeply impressed, observing the widow Clara Collins. She stood so tall in her tunic, so strong and self-possessed. He had heard her speak on other occasions at tent meetings and in company with Brother Ely, but always then in that great man’s shadow, and he had never before observed such eloquence in her, such candid poise, such great personal magnetism and contained power; she was as though possessed by the Holy Spirit Itself — and, indeed, was this not precisely the case?

More of Clara’s friends arrived, groups from Wilmer and Tucker City and a couple from Daviston, distracting her once more. She pointed toward where Brother Ben Wosznik could be found, and Hiram led his people over there, explaining elements of the movement as he understood them. Ben greeted them warmly, recognizing Hiram and Emma from his visit with Clara the previous Monday, and calling them by their first names. He informed them of the regulation regarding the wearing of only white garments under the tunics, and shepherded them upstairs to show them where the bathroom was. On the way, he interpreted for them the meaning of the design on the tunic, the cross that turned out to be a sort of coalminer’s pick, the enclosing circle, the use of the color scheme of brown upon white, and they talked about their expectations of the Coming of the Kingdom, the Kingdom of Light. As for the wearing of white underneath, he said that one of their members had gone to town this very afternoon to purchase a wide assortment of white underclothing for those who, in understandable ignorance, might have come without. Hiram had liked Ben immediately, upon the very first encounter, and now, climbing the narrow staircase in this strange house, below him a most strange and disturbing excitement, confronting the strangest event in Hiram Clegg’s life, he all but loved the man. Ben Wosznik breathed humility, compassion, loyalty, warmth. Wherever Clara Collins and Ben Wosznik are, Hiram thought that moment, there I belong.

Hiram, suffering from a mild seasonable cold, had dressed that morning in his old white longjohns, though the spring weather hardly called for it, and now he was glad that he had done so. The tunics were lightweight and it was easy to get a chill. Emma, on the other hand, was wearing her black brassiere, and the other articles were pink. “I feel so undressed, Hiram,” she confessed, once into the tunic and the underthings removed. Her breath still came quickly, irregularly, as a result of the climb upstairs, poor woman — her weight had become a severe problem to her these last years.

“I’ll try to find some things for you,” Hiram said. “I certainly don’t want you to have any pulmonary problems now, just at a time like this!”

“Oh, now, don’t worry, Hiram.” She smiled, panting a little. “It’s not the exertion, it’s the excitement.” And that was true. All that day and the next, it seemed impossible for Emma to catch her breath, even while sitting quietly.

Ben showed them where to hang their clothes, and they descended then, all together, returning to the turbulent event, and now to the very heart of it, for by their tunics they had announced their commitment. Ben led them to the altar, where, surrounded by such relics as white chicken feathers, the Black Hand of Persecution, a Mother Mary with her heart exposed on her breast, and, in a gilt frame, the famous death message of the beloved Ely Collins, the teacher Mrs. Eleanor Norton was discoursing to newsmen. Ben left them there to guide others up the stairs, and when the journalists, in their nervous and inevitably insulting manner, had moved on, Hiram introduced himself and his people to Mrs. Norton. Hiram found her every bit as gracious and wise as Sister Clara had foresaid. Her gray eyes were cool, but her friendship, once given, Hiram knew, was given forever. Around her neck, unlike the others, she wore a gold medallion, and Emma observed that the circle sewn around the cross on Mrs. Norton’s tunic seemed to have straight edges, instead of being a true circle. Mrs. Norton explained that it was in reality a dodecagon, and then she elaborated briefly upon some of her private views, which Hiram found a bit complicated, but extremely interesting. Addressing herself to the uppermost segments of the dodecagon, she indicated that which pertained to ascent and descent, and, in some fascinating yet obscure way, to the disaster and the rescue. The succeeding terms were those of “illumination,” “mystic fusion,” and, finally, “transformation.” Mrs. Norton gazed up at them, smiling gently, her eyes a-twinkle. “Tomorrow!” she whispered. And for the next thirty minutes, Emma could hardly catch her breath again.

Before the afternoon had passed, they met all the other original members — Mrs. Norton’s husband, Dr. Wylie Norton, the worldfamous lawyer Mr. Ralph Himebaugh, the Willie Halls, the widows, and so on — eventually even the prophet himself and the prophet’s mother. Emma and the widow of the martyr Edward Wilson, a charming yet pious lady, like Emma heavyset and softspoken, became fast friends upon first encounter and were seldom seen apart in the hours to follow. With Sister Clara so occupied, Sister Betty — for that was her name — became a kind of patron to his Randolph Junction people, and through her who had seen it all they felt yet more nearly drawn to its true center. They learned of the severe fast and the pledge of silence that the prophet’s sister, Marcella Bruno, was keeping in her room alone, measures taken, Sister Betty implied, to expiate the evil brought upon them by the hateful infiltrator from the Powers of Darkness, Mr. Justin Miller of the West Condon Chronicle, who, against his own dark purposes, as it were, had, through announcing and exploiting their presences, strengthened and augmented the Army of the Sons of Light. She was said to be very weak, but her decline seemed almost to provide a balancing curve against the upward drive of the Brunists, the two destined to meet in final consummation, it was believed, tomorrow on the Mount of Redemption. As for Giovanni Bruno, he was a most imposing man, lean and austere, with long hair and cavernous eyes, and Hiram, in the prophet’s presence, was uncommonly wonderstruck. He spoke not at all, for of course, as both Sister Clara and Mrs. Norton had observed, his purpose was unique and precise: to announce the Coming of the Light. He had done so. Further speech was superfluous. His only mission now was to lead them. And this, with sober poise, he did faultlessly.

Hiram himself was interviewed on one occasion. He had stepped out onto the front porch a moment to catch a breath of air, and there had been photographed in his tunic. A man asked him, “How long have you been a member of the Brunists?”

Hiram meditated but a moment, then replied, “Perhaps all of my life.”

“I thought this thing just got started this winter,” the man said, scribbling furiously in a notebook.

“Yes,” mused Hiram, “a man’s physical life is numbered by days. But the life of his soul is rooted in the centuries!”

“Oh, I getcha,” said the man, cracking chewing gum between his teeth. “You only meant that figuratively.”

“No, son. Nothing that is true is merely figurative.”

“Unh-hunh. Well, whaddaya think is going to happen tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow will see the conclusion,” Hiram replied, “of an historical epoch.”

“Yeah, but I mean, is there gonna be spaceships, or what?”

“My boy! Did Christ foresee the crown of thorns, the shape of the cross, the rolling of that certain stone? We march to meet God’s call, prepared to suffer what we must. Your questions are like those of a child who asks his parents what he’ll be or when he’ll die.”

Speechless, the foolish man left him. Hiram turned to discover Emma and Sister Betty at his back. “That was well said, Hiram,” said his wife.

“Why, it was beautiful!” cried the other woman. “Mr. Clegg — Brother Hiram — you’d make a wonderful preacher!”

“Will we go tonight to the Mount of Redemption?” Hiram inquired of Sister Betty.

“I don’t rightly know,” she said. “Let’s go ask Clara.”

Hiram’s question created, in fact, a certain controversy. Many of the newcomers, like himself, wished to see it, wished to have some picture of tomorrow’s goal, the place of the Coming, but on the other hand, and especially among the native West Condoners, there were fears about their several enemies, the reporters and Mr. Miller, the mayor and the law, the so-called West Condon Common Sense Committee which had been harassing them, and, above all, the fanatical followers of Abner Baxter, the coalminer who had arrogated the local Nazarene pulpit following the tragic and untimely death of Ely Collins. Clearly — if accounts of him could be believed — he was a man consumed by a terrible hatred, yet his power as a preacher of the Gospel was never denied; it was only that, as some said, he seemed, with all his power and eloquence, to have no “radiance” about him. The suggestion that was finally accepted was that they in fact make a pilgrimage to the Mount, taking along box suppers, so that all might become acquainted with it, but that they depart late in the evening, at a time when such a journey would no longer be suspected by the foe. The suppers, then, were prepared by the women, Emma, God rest her dear soul, doing her share and more, as always.

At the same time, modest refreshments were brought out and consumed readily. Excitement, Hiram had found, always engenders a certain dryness of the throat and a nervous hunger. White underclothing arrived in enormous bundles, and Hiram selected drawers for Emma, his friends doing likewise, as necessary, in fairly certain hopes now of having their own tunics before the night was over, for Sister Betty had procured the materials and the two women were already busy with needle and thread. A rather stupid and embarrassing thing occurred at that moment. Holding up the drawers to be sure they would be large enough for Emma, Hiram had his photo snapped by a passing news photographer. Hiram saw himself in all the newpapers of the world, holding up a pair of ladies’ drawers. Spying Sister Clara Collins nearby, he told her what had happened. She turned dark with indignation, asked him to point out the photographer. Then, quickly, she rounded up six other men, including Brother Ben, and they encircled the man, suggested he turn over all his film packs or risk probable damages to his fine camera. The victory was sudden and total. Later that night, on the Mount, the films were burned. A great and forever unquenchable sense of gratitude welled up in Hiram’s heart.

As the evening deepened, the newsmen thinned away, much to the relief of everyone, and finally they were able to rid themselves of all the intruders; able at last to stand alone together, gauge their strength. It was considerable: well over a hundred persons already, not including nearly as many children, and it was still, they all recognized solemnly, only the day before. Hiram, accustomed to such gatherings, was able to be of much help, distributing things, helping to maintain order, taking his turn at the door to forestall any further trespasses. They were all taught the secret password, the handshake, and several other devices properly intended to close nonbelievers out of the circle of the select. From various persons of the inner group, they learned once more about the now-famous White Bird visitation in the disaster-struck mine, the early prophecies, the Night of the Sign, and the other astonishing events. Mr. Himebaugh the lawyer, who was an incredibly active man, seemingly everywhere at once, even-tempered and patient to a fault, yet as though blazing from within with a terrible energy, then presented to them, in outline, the mathematical proofs for the event’s inevitable occurrence on the morrow, the nineteenth of April. If there had been doubts before, they were now dispelled. Hiram was speechless — how perfectly revolved this universe of ours! — and he saw tears and amazement in Emma’s eyes.

Then the teacher Mrs. Norton spoke on the meaning of the hill, of the Mount of Redemption, and this too was a deeply moving performance. “Although the transformation we envision is unrelated to the temporal and spatial dimensions of the dense earth,” she said, “nevertheless, it is wholly appropriate at these times to receive the call for certain symbolic actions, not as a part of a divine dialogue, but as a means of providing a comprehensible metaphor for the rest of the world, so as better to prepare the way—” (from the others, “amens,” the nodding of heads gravely) “—and, for us, as a way to exercise our spiritual discipline.” (“Amens” again, applause.) “Thus, meeting on a hill, the highest point in this area, is not so much because our rescue depends on it, but because it fulfills all of these functions: it is in itself symbolic of the upward effort we are all making in order to free ourselves from our physical prisons—” (Hiram said: “True, true!”) “—it is a public act and a spiritual calisthenic; it ties up all the elements of what has gone before, returning us bodily, as it were, to the site of the mine disaster, of the initiating action, and of the White Bird visitation.” Again, then, the chorus of “amens” and an eruption of prayer, the start of a song, but Sister Clara stood and gestured for silence. Mrs. Norton continued: “Moreover, it is so clearly a divine request: my logs have foreshadowed it, Giovanni Bruno announced it, Mr. Himebaugh’s computations provide proofs of it, and Mrs. Collins rightly interpreted it — independently, we reached the same conclusion, in other words, each through our own channels of inspiration. And, finally, it is so right a place, as all of you will soon see. A place in nature, away from man-made distortions, and, but for a single tree, a barren place, an ascetic site proper for our great spiritual drama!” Now there were cheers and prayers aplenty, a tumultuous excitement, yes, the excitement had been long building, Hiram too had sensed it, the milling about, the cameras, the white tunics, this great gathering.

And then a little man stood up, staring above and beyond them, and Hiram’s heart began to race, and Sister Clara cried out, “Brother Willie Hall!”

“As it says in the Gospel,” Brother Willie cried out, and there was a wave of shouting, “the Gospel of Matthew,” and another wave, yet more impassioned, “the fifth chapter and the fourteenth verse,” and now there were cries addressing Brother Willie and asking that he teach them the truth, which, of course, he had every intention of doing, “‘Ye are the light of the world!’” and the cries mounted and the tears began to flow, “‘And a city set on a hill cannot be hid!’”

“No, it cannot be hid!” cried a lady, and then they prayed in earnest, they sang in earnest, they wept in joy.

And Sister Clara Collins rose tall and she said, “We go, we go to that Mount of Redemption,” and how her voice rang! “we go not to die, but to act!” And oh! how they exulted! and oh! how their hearts leapt with a common hope! and oh! how the halleluiahs were sounded! “The Kingdom is ours! It awaits us! It awaits us on the Mount of Redemption! We have but to act! We have but to go! But to go and to receive it!” Oh! it was tremendous! it was electric! it was glorious!

O the Sons of Light are marching to the Mount where it is said

We shall find our true Redemption from this world of woe and dread,

We shall see the cities crumble and the earth give up its dead,

For the end of time has come!

So come and march with us to Glory!

Oh, come and march with us to Glory!

Yes, come and march with us to Glory!

For the end of time has come!

And so, loading up with box suppers, they headed for their automobiles. On the morrow, of course, they would march out there barefoot, but tonight’s pilgrimage was primarily to familiarize the new people, and the cars, they reasoned, would permit them a quick removal in the event the enemy — any enemy — should appear. Tomorrow they faced persecutions, suffering, perhaps even death. Tonight they wished only for peace, desiring not to push God’s hand. The following strategy was decided upon. A guard would be posted throughout the supper, and, at the first sight of approaching car lights on the mine road, they would adjourn instantly to their autos. West Condoners, most familiar with the route, would lead the escape, forming a caravan and keeping their own lights extinguished until the last possible moment, in an effort to speed by their persecutors before these latter realized what was taking place.

It was really incredibly beautiful out on the Mount, one felt indeed quite in the palm of God’s gentle hand, a dark sky above but clear, the tipple of old Number Nine silhouetted against it, a glorious taste of burgeoning spring in the night air. They built a large bonfire, there sang songs familiar to them all from campmeetings and evangelistic outings, heard important declarations of faith from many of the newcomers. “Oh, I thank God I am here tonight! I thank God my Mommy and Daddy were Christian people! I thank God I am ready!” As they sang, a kind of nostalgia swept over them and it astonished them all to discover, as if for the first time, the true power, the inspiration, the profound significance of their songs’ collective message. Someone had had the foresight to bring marshmallows, which the children roasted in the flames of their fire, and their innocent gaiety soothed the grownups’ fears: yes, surely, to such belongeth the kingdom of God. Giovanni Bruno, who, Hiram was told, may have perished in the disaster that shook the very earth beneath their feet, and might now be inhabited by a superior spirit, thus accounting further for his fragile taciturnity, never participated directly with them, though he passed among them freely, now smiling approvingly, now nodding solemnly, now raising his hand in a sort of benediction.

Standing out there on the hill, Hiram was not ignorant of, nor did he shy from, the recognition of the sensual excitation that accompanied the spiritual one: the cool night breeze around their all but unprotected loins, the descriptive folds of the tunics, the inciting fragrance, and the strangeness — and, when one passed before the fire, his body was as though revealed to those behind him. And yet, though perhaps it enhanced the fervor of their songs and prayers, there was a total chastity, not merely of action but of thought, pervading them all. The human body, after all, was an instrument of lust, but it was also — could also be — must always be! — a divinely created instrument of grace, consecrated to the Lord’s service, beautiful in all its parts, when all its parts were subservient to piety and prudence. The body of a woman of sin, even when perfectly proportioned, was a hideous abomination, a repulsive and malformed tool of evil — yet these women now silhouetted against the flames, though sunken like Mrs. Norton or gauntly bold and athletic like Clara Collins, though wizened like Mrs. Bruno or inflated like his dear Emma or Sister Betty Wilson, possessed bodies which, by their modesty and their holiness, were consummately beautiful.

Besides the old songs, they sang many new ones written by Brother Ben Wosznik, including his exultant “White Bird” ballad, that, perhaps more than any other single thing, most immediately conjoined them all to this common cause:

On a cold and wintry eighth of January,

Ninety-eight men entered into the mine,

Only one of these returned to tell the story

Of that disaster that struck—

“Lights!” cried the lookout. “Lights on the mine road!”

They gasped, panicked, flew in a mad scurry back toward their cars. They knew not this enemy and what a man knows not, he fears unreasonably. People cried without cause. Clara stood on the hill and shouted to all of them their instructions. Ben, at the foot, shepherded each into cars, and it was most confusing. Hiram and Emma were somehow separated, Hiram’s own car filling up with complete strangers, and just before pulling the door to, he heard the lookout cry, “They’s fifteen or twenty cars of ’em!” Hiram watched the fire being extinguished, a little guilty that he had run so frantically.

And then it began. Darkly, the procession eased away from the Mount of Redemption and turned toward West Condon, toward that advancing column, and there was no choice but to fall into place quickly, else be left behind, indefensible victims. They drove in rather rapidly, a little too rapidly, Hiram thought, for he observed there was a deep ditch to either side of them, and for one dark fear-stained moment he saw it all as stupid, insane, a blind and foolish covenant with whimsey, what had brought him—?

Then he saw the lights ahead and he thought of nothing at all but the immediate danger, the car in front of him, the ditch to his right. Yes, indeed, there were many of them; these advancing lights guided them. And then there were their own lights and, his heart leaping to his throat, he threw his on, lights everywhere, and suddenly …

But how did it happen? If all of it seemed a dream, how much more so this jolting dizzying moment! If all a whirl, this was its violent vortex! Hiram remembered something of the later return: the thick flow of their great procession through that little town, the congregation of automobiles jammed in all directions around the Bruno home. Of that night, there remained scattered images, the vigil, the weeping, the mournful making of tunics and tunics and tunics. There were public confessions and old enmities were dissolved in prayer and awe. No one slept. There was that profoundly moving incident of the gold medallion, when, just before dawn, the hysteria abating and their great task upon them, the deeply grieving lady Mrs. Eleanor Norton — had she not been a spiritual mother to the girl? — stood, approached, in a walk more of death than life, Sister Clara Collins, and, wordlessly, hung that medallion around Clara’s neck. Whereupon they embraced and wept like schoolgirls, and all who saw wept too.

But the Sacrifice itself: where was he? when was it? who was there with him? what did he do? what did they do? He could never remember. Only split-second, almost motionless pictures remained. He saw her body hurtling by. But could it have been she? No, given the position of his car when he stopped, the position of the girl where they found her, it was quite impossible. Yet, he was sure of it: he saw her body hurtling by. There was another picture: lights askew, beamed in all directions. This terrified him. It was too bright, too harsh, too anarchical, too resplendent. Cars wrecked, in ditches, piled into each other — the grill of his own was smashed, his knee banged up, but he never recalled the crash, never remembered stopping, did not feel for hours his damaged knee, though afterwards it plagued him to his dying day: he recalled only the deranged play of lights and the moaning. Another picture, but this one was at the end: the girl’s body in the back seat of a car. Her right arm hung off the seat, her left lay pinched between her body and the back of the seat, her eyes open. He could never forget this, because he had helped put her there — where had he found the strength? it seemed incredible to him after! — and could have rearranged her, closed her eyelids, but did not. They were a good while untangling that heaped disarray of autos and the girl was slight, had bled much. By the time they entered her into her house, she had rigidified in that peculiar position, and so remained those intense hours that immediately followed.

And, finally, there was his picture of the girl herself, Marcella Bruno, lying, face up, in the ditch: lovely, yet wasted, drawn, so small! so helpless! Her face was serene, her eyes closed, her lips slightly parted, but her small body, enshrouded in its white tunic with the brown embroidery, was grotesquely twisted … one of her feet seemed even to point the wrong way. There was, he was sure, talk of rushing her to a hospital or of calling an ambulance: in such a situation, there was always such talk, and perhaps he himself even made a similar suggestion. And he seemed to remember the fear expressed that if she were turned over to any authority, even a doctor, she would be unable to join them on the Mount and thus could conceivably forfeit her eternal salvation. Though all of this may only have been recreated in later conversations (the fear of authority in some form or other was there, certainly, for Hiram himself knew a great anxiety). Anyway, this did happen: the girl’s eyes opened suddenly and her lips parted as though to speak. All leaned forward — he himself must have been quite close — but instead of a sound, all that emerged was a bright red bubble of blood that ballooned, burst, and dribbled down her cheeks. These things Hiram Clegg — who was to become Bishop Clegg of Randolph Junction, the first President of the International Council of Brunist Bishops, the man to nominate Mrs. Clara Collins as their first Evangelical Leader and Organizer, and who would be, some years later, the Bishop of the State of Florida — carried away from that humbling experience: the body hurtling by, the mad play of lights, Dr. Wylie Norton’s plump knees in the cinders, the bubble of blood, the girl in the back seat of a car.

Perhaps other occurrences of note transpired. Some seemed to remember a luminous white bird, perched high above them on a telephone cable. Others spoke in later years of a heart-shaped bloodstain on the breast of Marcella’s tunic, just where the circle and cross were. Many vouched that a priest had passed among them, solemn and ashen. There were those who recalled that the prophet dipped his fingers in the blood of his sister and therewith marked his forehead with a small dark cross, and some believed he so marked all those present. Hiram, it was true, did find blood on his forehead after, and so he was never in a position to deny this account. Yet if it occurred, he had wholly forgot it. The most persistent legend in later years — and the only one which Hiram knew to be false — was that the girl, in the last throes of death, had pointed to the heavens, and then, miraculously, maintained this gesture forever after. This death in the ditch, the Sacrifice, became in the years that followed a popular theme for religious art, and the painters never failed to exploit this legend of the heavenward gesture, never failed to omit the bubble of blood. Which was, of course, as it should be.