forcing his body against the door and straining the
fingers back from his palms, so that the palms lay
exposed and helpless. An unendurable pain in his
hands, in his feet — an unendurable pain.

'Lord, if You are with me still do not stay ... do
not suffer. . . .' But the words sank down and were
lost in a bottomless pit of physical anguish.

His head moved quickly from side to side as though
he were trying to see those hands, to comprehend the
cause of such suffering. Then it drooped as though
he would see his feet and look on the rood they had
nailed beneath them. But presently he became very
still and his dying eyes gazed out to the east—-to
the east where the flaming, majestic dawn rose over
the world like a resurrection.

490