“There is but one man in Jerusalem this day who can save Him,” she urged, “and that man is you, Lodbrog.”
Because I did not immediately reply she shook me, as if in impulse to clarify wits she considered addled.
She shook me till my harness rattled.
“Speak, Lodbrog, speak!” she commanded. “You are strong and unafraid.
You are all man.
I know you despise the vermin who would destroy Him.
You, you alone can save Him. You have but to say the word and the thing is done; and I will well love you and always love you for the thing you have done.”
“I am a Roman,” I said slowly, knowing full well that with the words I gave up all hope of her.
“You are a man-slave of Tiberius, a hound of Rome,” she flamed, “but you owe Rome nothing, for you are not a Roman.
You yellow giants of the north are not Romans.”
“The Romans are the elder brothers of us younglings of the north,” I answered. “Also, I wear the harness and I eat the bread of Rome.” Gently I added: “But why all this fuss and fury for a mere man’s life?
All men must die.
Simple and easy it is to die.
To-day, or a hundred years, it little matters.
Sure we are, all of us, of the same event in the end.”
Quick she was, and alive with passion to save as she thrilled within my arms.
“You do not understand, Lodbrog.
This is no mere man.
I tell you this is a man beyond men—a living God, not of men, but over men.”
I held her closely and knew that I was renouncing all the sweet woman of her as I said:
“We are man and woman, you and I.
Our life is of this world.
Of these other worlds is all a madness.
Let these mad dreamers go the way of their dreaming.
Deny them not what they desire above all things, above meat and wine, above song and battle, even above love of woman.
Deny them not their hearts’ desires that draw them across the dark of the grave to their dreams of lives beyond this world.
Let them pass.
But you and I abide here in all the sweet we have discovered of each other.
Quickly enough will come the dark, and you depart for your coasts of sun and flowers, and I for the roaring table of Valhalla.”
“No! no!” she cried, half-tearing herself away. “You do not understand.
All of greatness, all of goodness, all of God are in this man who is more than man; and it is a shameful death to die.
Only slaves and thieves so die.
He is neither slave nor thief.
He is an immortal.
He is God.
Truly I tell you He is God.”
“He is immortal you say,” I contended. “Then to die to-day on Golgotha will not shorten his immortality by a hair’s breadth in the span of time.
He is a god you say.
Gods cannot die.
From all I have been told of them, it is certain that gods cannot die.”
“Oh!” she cried. “You will not understand.
You are only a great giant thing of flesh.”
“Is it not said that this event was prophesied of old time?” I queried, for I had been learning from the Jews what I deemed their subtleties of thinking.
“Yes, yes,” she agreed, “the Messianic prophecies. This is the Messiah.”
“Then who am I,” I asked, “to make liars of the prophets? to make of the Messiah a false Messiah?
Is the prophecy of your people so feeble a thing that I, a stupid stranger, a yellow northling in the Roman harness, can give the lie to prophecy and compel to be unfulfilled—the very thing willed by the gods and foretold by the wise men?”
“You do not understand,” she repeated.
“I understand too well,” I replied. “Am I greater than the gods that I may thwart the will of the gods?
Then are gods vain things and the playthings of men.
I am a man.