Hastening a little with the desire to have finished going, he overtook two men going slowly, and talking. And being soft-footed, he heard they were speaking of himself. And he remembered them, for he had known them in his life, the life of his mission. So he greeted them, but did not disclose himself in the dusk, and they did not know him. He said to them:
“What then of him who would be king, and was put to death for it?”
They answered suspiciously: “Why ask you of him?”
“I have known him, and thought much about him,” he said.
So they replied: “He has risen.”
“Yea! And where is he, and how does he live?”
“We know not, for it is not revealed. Yet he is risen, and in a little while will ascend unto the Father.”
“Yea! And where then is his Father?”
“Know ye not? You are then of the Gentiles! The Father is in Heaven, above the cloud and the firmament.”
“Truly? Then how will he ascend?”
“As Elijah the Prophet, he shall go up in a glory.”
“Even into the sky.”
“Into the sky.”
“Then is he not risen in the flesh?”
“He is risen in the flesh.”
“And will he take flesh up into the sky?”
“The Father in Heaven will take him up.”
The man who had died said no more, for his say was over, and words beget words, even as gnats. But the man asked him: “Why do you carry a cock?”
“I am a healer,” he said, “and the bird hath virtue.”
“You are not a believer?”
“Yea! I believe the bird is full of life and virtue.”
They walked on in silence after this, and he felt they disliked his answer. So he smiled to himself, for a dangerous phenomenon in the world is a man of narrow belief, who denies the right of his neighbour to be alone. And as they came to the outskirts of the village, the man who had died stood still in the gloaming and said in his old voice:
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