* * * * * The woman and her selfish request that would have made out of miracles a slave to self passed from the Bishop’s mind like a cloud that darkens our path for a moment, then vanishes, leaving not the shadow of a substance. His quest was a shining light that eclipsed every other impression from his being. Before they could pass beyond his reach, he would go to his aged master, Apollos in Crete, and to John, the Beloved, in Patmos, and ask them in verity if that message in the letter to the Seven Churches of the Roman Road was to be taken in spiritual parable, or in letter truth—that there was to be no more Death. If the Kingdom were here and now, then like the insect nymph on the fountain stone, Death was but the change of a worn out fleshy garment for a vesture of light. Being still in his prime, Onesimus, the Bishop, did not realize that his quest was the self-same search as that of the aged woman, bent and broken under sin at the end of the road where there is no turning. All he realized was that if the Christ’s ascension meant no more Death, then this springtime anniversary marked a gladness of earth and air and sea, that created a New Heaven and a New Earth. As the Bishop stood at the prow watching the carved eagle’s head noiselessly cut the calm seas between Ephesus and Crete, his soul was wrapped in the deep calm of the beauty of the night. The silver moon above hung silver in the water below. Only a cat’s-paw of wind was in the canvas. The rowers below plied their oars as one man, keeping time to some old rhythmic chant that was like the croon of the wind. The Christian Bishop was Greek and the hypnotic rune carried his racial memories back—back—back to the minstrelsy of hill clan and seaman, to myths of the Isles of Greece—Minotaur—Bull-God—to whom the maidens were offered; Mammon—God of Gold—to whom the youths were offered; and raids over the mountain and sea to steal the victims. To Onesimus, standing musing, the real world had become a dream world, when a sailor at the prowl spoke to him in Greek: “Know you this coin, Master? Is it gold or bronze?” The seaman was clad only in trunks and loose shirt, with bare feet and bare head. He had a capstan bar over his left shoulder, but between the forefinger and thumb of his right hand he held a rudely minted coin with roughly stamped insignia, which glittered yellow in the moonlight. “It is gold. It is a very old coin. How did you come by it?” Onesimus had taken the coin and was turning it over and over in his hand.