The scroll added that it was he, who before he entered into religion was
a sculptor by trade, that had fashioned the figure on the cross in this
chapel out of that of the heathen goddess which had stood in the same
place from unknown antiquity. It ended with a request, addressed to all
good Christians in Latin, that they who soon must be as he was would
pray for his soul and not disturb his bones, which rested here in the
hope of a blessed resurrection.
When this pious wish was translated to Jacob Meyer by Mr. Clifford, who
still retained some recollection of the classics which he had painfully
acquired at Eton and Oxford, the Jew could scarcely contain his wrath.
Indeed, looking at his bleeding hands, instead of praying for the soul
of that excellent missionary, to reach whose remains he had laboured
with such arduous, incessant toil, he cursed it wherever it might be,
and unceremoniously swept the bones, which the document asked him not to
disturb, into a corner of the tomb, in order to ascertain whether there
was not, perhaps, some stair beneath them.
"Really, Mr. Meyer," said Benita, who, in spite of the solemnity of the
surroundings, could not control her sense of humour, "if you are not
careful the ghosts of all these people will haunt you.
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