The stranger spoke anon: "You know, O Dream Interpreter!" turning now direct to Mesullam, as if he thought that he could understand him, despite his foreign tongue--"you know that a distinguished foreigner is visiting Jerusalem at present, and on his account they have talked of opening the walled-up gate in Jerusalem's ring-wall--the one they call 'the Golden' and which is believed to be the gate through which Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. They have actually been thinking of doing the distinguished traveller the honor of letting him ride into the city through a gate which has been walled up for centuries; but they were held back by an old prophecy which foretells that when this gate is opened the Occidentals will march in through it to take possession of Jerusalem. "And now you shall hear what happened to me last night. The weather was superb; it was glorious moonlight, and I had gone out alone to take a quiet promenade around the Holy City. I walked outside the ring-wall on the narrow path that extends all round the wall, and my thoughts were borne so far back into distant ages that I scarcely remembered where I was. All of a sudden I began to feel tired. I wondered if I should not soon come to a gate in the wall, through which I might get into the city and thus return to my quarters by a shorter road. Well, just as I was thinking of this, I saw a man open a large gate in the wall directly in front of me. He opened it wide and beckoned to me that I might pass in through it. I was absorbed in my dreams and hardly knew how far I had been walking. I was somewhat surprised that there was a gate here, but I thought no more about the matter and walked through it. As soon as I had passed through the deep archway, the gate closed with a sharp clang. When I turned round, there was no opening visible, only a walled-up gate--the one called the Golden. Before me lay the temple place, the broad Haram plateau, in the centre of which Omar's Mosque is enthroned. And you know that no gate in the ring-wall leads thither but the Golden, which is not only closed but walled up. "You can understand that I thought I'd gone mad; that I dreamed I had tried in vain to find some explanation of this. I looked around for the man who had let me in. He had vanished and I could not find him. But, on the other hand, I saw him all the plainer in memory--the tall and slightly bent figure, the beautiful locks, the mild visage, the parted beard. It was _Christ_, soothsayer, _Christ_ once again. "Tell me now, you who can look into the hidden, what mean my dreams? What, more than all, can be the meaning of my having really and truly passed through the Golden Gate? Even at this moment I do not know how it happened, but I have done so. Tell me, now, what these three things can mean!"