Seven Gothic Tales by Isak Dinesen Page A

that it may be granted to me to suffer and die for my Lord. Sometimes, even, in these last nights,’ he went on, speaking in a low voice, ‘I have thought that at the end of the road a cross might await me.’ Having spoken thus he dared not look up to meet the other’s eyes. He added quickly, ‘Although you may think that I am boasting, and that I am too low for that.’
    “ ‘No,’ said the stranger, ‘I think it very likely that all this of which you have spoken will indeed happen to you.’
    “This confidence in his own hopes struck Peter as a most unexpected and generous piece of friendliness in the stranger. His heat melted with gratitude. He blushed like a young bride. For the first time he felt a real interest in his companion, and it seemed to him that he ought to do something for him in return for the lovely things that he had said to him. ‘I am sorry,’ he said gently, ‘that I have not been able to help you in what weighs upon your soul. But indeed I am hardly in command of myself, so much has happened to me in these last days.’
    “ ‘Oh,’ said the stranger, ‘I hardly expected anything better.’
    “In the course of our talk,’ Peter said, ‘you said a couple of times that you did not know what to do. Tell me in what matter it is that you are in such doubts. Even about this wine, of which you speak, I will try to advise you.’ The stranger looked at him. ‘I have not been talking of any particular matter,’ he said. ‘I do not know what to do at all. I do not know where such wine is found that will gladden my heart again. But I suppose,’ he went on, after a little while, ‘that I had better go and dig up that wine of the tetrarch’s, and sleep with this girl that I told you of. I may as well try.’
    “With these words he got up from the table and draped his cloak around him.
    “ ‘Do not go yet,’ Peter said. ‘It seems to me that there are many things of which we ought to talk together.’
    “ ‘I have to go in any case,’ said the man. ‘There is a transport of oil on its way from Hebron, which I must meet.’
    “ ‘Are you trading in oil, then?’ Peter asked. ‘In a way,’ said the man.
    “ ‘But tell me, before you go,’ said Peter, ‘what is your name? For we might speak again together, some time, if I knew where to find you?’ The stranger was already standing in the door. He turned around and looked at Peter with hauteur and a slight scorn. He looked a magnificent figure. ‘Did you not know my name?’ he asked him. ‘My name was cried all over the town. There was not one of the tame burghers of Jerusalem who did not shout it with all his might. “Barabbas,” they cried, “Barabbas! Barabbas! Give us Barabbas.” My name is Barabbas. I have been a great chief, and, as you said yourself, a brave man. My name shall be remembered.’
    “And with these words he walked away.”
    As the Cardinal had finished his tale, Jonathan got up and changed the tallow candle in the lantern, for it had burned quitedown, and was now flickering wildly up and down in its last convulsions.
    He had no sooner done this than the girl at his side became deadly pale. Her eyes closed, and her whole figure seemed to sink together. Miss Malin asked her kindly if she felt sleepy, but she denied it with great energy, and might well do so. She had lived during this night as she had never lived before. She had faced death and had thrown herself nobly into the jaws of danger for the sake of her fellow-creatures. She had been the center of a brilliant circle, and she had even been married. She did not want to miss a single moment of these pregnant hours. But during the next ten minutes she fell asleep time after time in spite of her efforts to keep awake, her young head rocking forward and back.
    She at last consented to lie down to rest for a moment, and her husband arranged a couch for her in the hay, and took off his coat to spread over her. Still holding his hand she sank down,