He knew it was for a revelation--for something that should crown their aspirations, and fix them so for ever.
He had a sense that he had seen all this before; and, like a child, he began to ask himself where it could have happened, until he remembered that it was so that he had once dreamt of the Judgment Day--of humanity gathered to meet Jesus Christ--Jesus Christ! Ah! how tiny that Figure seemed to him now--how far away--real indeed, but insignificant to himself--how hopelessly apart from this tremendous life! He glanced up at the Campanile.

Yes; there was a piece of the True Cross there, was there not ?--a little piece of the wood on which a Poor Man had died twenty centuries ago....

Well, well.

It was a long way off....
He did not quite understand what was happening to him.

"Sweet Jesus, be to me not a Judge but a Saviour," he whispered beneath his breath, gripping the granite of the pillar; and a moment later knew how futile was that prayer.