The clipping of steel chisels upon stone, the echoing noise of falling planks, the hoarse voices of the workmen as they called to each other high up on their insecure perches, all rose above the deep diapason note of the traffic in a welter of sharply-defined sound. Joseph stepped upon the pavement beneath the busy works. He was, he noticed, just opposite the office of the small East End newspaper for which Hampson, the poor, half-starved, but cheery little journalist did occasional jobs. Hampson--good, kind, little Hampson! It was pleasant to think of him, and as he did so Joseph's thoughts lost their bitterness for a moment. Only the utterly vile can contemplate real unassuming goodness and unselfishness without a certain warming of the heart. Hampson was only half educated--he had the very greatest difficulty in making a living, yet he was always bright and happy, ever illuminated by some inward joy. Even as he thought of Hampson--almost his only friend--Joseph saw the man himself coming out of the narrow doorway. Hampson saw the scholar at once in his quick, bird-like way, and waved his hand with a significant and triumphant gesture. There was to be dinner, then! It was not so. The two poor friends were not to share a humble meal together on that night, at any rate. High above Joseph's head, two planks were being slowly hauled upwards to the topmost part of the scaffolding. They were secured by the usual halter knot round the centre. The noose, however, had slipped, as the rope was a new one, and the two heavy pieces of timber hung downwards with the securing tie perilously near the upper end. There was a sudden shout of alarm which sent a hundred startled faces peering upwards and then the planks fell right upon the man who stood beneath, crushing him to the ground, face downwards, like a broken blade of grass. With the magic celerity which is part of the psychology of crowds, a ring of excited people sprang round the crushed, motionless figure, as if at the bidding of a magician's wand. Willing hands began to lift the great beams from it. Hampson had been one of the first to see and realize the accident. He was by the side of his friend in three or four seconds after the planks had struck him down. And he saw something that, even in his horror and excitement, sent a strange inexplicable throb through his blood and made all his pulses drum with a sense of quickening, of nearness to the Unseen, such as he had never experienced in all his life before. It is given to those who are very near to God to see visions, sometimes to draw very close to the Great Veil. The two planks of timber had fallen over Joseph's back in the exact form of the Cross. To the little journalist, if to no one else in the rapidly-gathering crowd, the wood and the bowed figure below it brought back the memory of a great picture he had seen, a picture of the Via Dolorosa, when Jesus fainted and fell under the weight He bore. CHAPTER II