Chapter 23

‘We’re to wait here,’ said Andrew. ‘He is coming to us.’

They slowly drifted to the afterdeck and sat in a circle around Peter. If anyone remembered his unaccountable apostasy and flight on the morning of the great tragedy, it was not apparent. They were too full of joy to remember anything but their Master’s conquest. They were all talking at once. Peter’s brightened eyes darted from one to another as he tried to follow their fragmentary narratives. Then he began asking questions: ‘Was Jesus the same—with the same body?’

‘Absolutely the same,’ declared Thomas. ‘A bit pale, perhaps. There were deep black thorn-cuts on his forehead and purple nail-wounds in his hands and feet, and the gash of a sword-thrust in his side; but he was real!’

‘Not just a spirit, then,’ concluded Peter, ‘but flesh and blood.’

At that, they suddenly fell silent. Old Bartholomew cleared his throat.

‘There was a little difference, Peter,’ he admitted. ‘It is true, as Thomas says, that he appeared in his real body—’

‘And he ate, too, a bit of fish and some honey in the comb,’ interposed Philip.

‘We don’t know that—for sure,’ put in James. ‘The only light in there was a small candle, for we were in hiding.’

‘Well—he took the plate,’ persisted Philip. ‘He could have eaten.’

Peter turned his attention to the old man.

‘What was it you started to say, Bartholomew?’

They all listened, their eyes lowered as if they knew what was coming.

‘Only this, Peter,’ replied Bartholomew. ‘There was a little difference. When he came into the room, he didn’t bother to open the door.’

Peter’s eyes widened. The others did not look up.

‘You mean—he walked through it!’

‘I suppose so,’ said Bartholomew lamely. ‘The door did not open; and then—he was standing there.’

‘And when he left you,’ pursued Peter, ‘did he open the door? And do you know where he went?’

‘That was mysterious, too,’ rejoined Bartholomew. ‘He was standing there among us, as I say, talking earnestly with us; and, as James has told you, the room was but dimly lighted; and, presently, he was gone.’