Mr. Bold chose a ’bus, the committee filled it almost more than full, and it was driven off immediately, among the first to quit the station. A cloud of dust surrounded them as they rattled along the level road, leaving farther and farther behind them the still ceaseless tumult of the crowded platform, above which loomed the locomotive, smoking and hissing gigantically.
The owner of the ’bus stood on the steps behind clinging to the door-frame. “Be you ministers?” said he.
“Yes,” said one of the party.
“Come to the baptism?”
The minister laughed. “No, not exactly.”
“But, talking of baptism,” said Mr. Munjoy, “I wish very much we could find a basin of water and a cake of soap somewhere; it was very dusty coming down.”
The hackman leaned to one side and spat into the dusty road that sped away behind. “Yes,” he assented; “you see, we ’ain’t had no rain now for above two weeks.”
“Pretty bad look-out for salvation, I should say, if the dry weather holds,” observed Mr. Munjoy.
Dr. Caiaphas sat quiet and impassive. The uncomfortable feeling had been growing upon him ever since he left home that he was upon a grotesque fool’s errand.
The road over which they were now passing was heavy and sandy. The sun shone down upon it warmly, and, early as was the season, the fresh grass had begun to show itself in irregular patches of light and dark-green. The sky overhead was blue. In the sunshine it was warm, but those on the shady side of the coach drew their overcoats closer about them. Every now and then the hack would pass little groups or single figures, all plodding along in the direction of the camp. Sometimes there were larger groups of men and women and some children or half-grown girls. Some of the men carried their overcoats over one arm. One group which they passed consisted of three women, one man, and three children. One of the women–thin and frail-looking–carried a young baby, and the two other tired children dragged themselves along, holding each by a hand of another of the women. All these people were of the commoner sort. Some appeared to be working-men with their wives, others appeared not even to be laboring men, but of that great, underlying, nameless class that is still lower in the scale of social existence than the class of producers. Most of these people were evidently dressed in their best clothes, as though for a holiday.
After riding for maybe a mile, the hack turned a bend in the road, and from the summit of a little sandy rise of ground the committee came within sudden sight of the camp.
Every one of them was surprised at the extent of the encampment. As they looked down upon it, it stretched away like a great town of tents and huts. In some places the tents and frame sheds were clustered in a confused mass, in other places they were separated into streets and avenues. Upon the outskirts–the suburbs of this nondescript town–were everywhere clustering groups of carts and wagons and restless crowds of people which grew thicker and thicker in the camp, becoming here and there congested into restless, moving ganglia of humanity. These disconnected groups of people gathered most thickly along the banks of the stream, and far away in the distance was a greater crowd surrounding some central point of interest. The visitors surmised that John the Baptist was the centre of that crowd. Beyond the stream were a few scattered huts, and beyond that a level, green marsh. An inlet from the sea made in part a broken, sandy headland. Beyond that, in the distance, was a wide, sparkling stretch of water with the far, blue line of the farther shore. Above all was the windy arch of sky looking down peacefully and calmly upon the clustered, restless masses of human beings below. There was an indefinable odor of salt in the air, and the wind came across from over the marsh, fresh and cool.
The hack rattled down the road and into the camp in a cloud of dust. It was about noon and many of the people were eating their mid-day meal. Everywhere there were clusters of men and women, sitting in farm wagons or carts munching their food and talking among themselves.
The driver drove for some little distance into the camp, checking his horses every now and then and hallooing to the men and women in his road, who scattered right and left to make way for the rather headlong rate at which he drove. At last he stopped in front of a big frame shed with a rude sign above the doorway, informing the passers that there refreshment was to be had at a cheap and popular price. The shed was open at one end, and within you could see rows of benches and long deal tables. Here the committee got out, one by one, and stood looking about them.
Along the wide, street-like space there fronted a long, disjointed line of huts and tents of all sorts and kinds. The air was full of an indescribable odor as of raw boards and crushed grass. The street was full of a restless, passing stream of men and women and boys, and everywhere was the ceaseless buzz of talking, now and then dominated by the call of some one hallooing to a distant comrade.
The visiting clergymen had no doubt whither to bend their steps. All the crowd seemed to drift and centre in one direction, and they knew that thither they would find him whom they sought. As they passed down along the front of the different tents and huts and shanties, they heard everywhere the clatter of dishes and smelt the odor of cooking. Here and there a hut bore a sign indicating that there lodging was to be had. At one place they passed by where a man, evidently stupefied with drink, lay in the sun by the side of a little frame hut with a canvas cover. A thin, bony woman was cooking a meal of food at a stove behind the hut, and the combined smell of the smoke and frying food filled the air. Two little children came around the side of the hut and stood looking at the committee as it passed.
The motley, restless crowd grew thicker and thicker as the committee approached the spot where they knew John must be found, and at last they had some difficulty in pushing their way through the congested groups. As they elbowed their way, the crowd would look at them and then, seeing they were ministers, would make way for them. Suddenly they came upon the Baptist, almost before they had expected to find him. He was eating a meal of indescribable food, sitting upon the ground, holding the plate upon his knees. He was, indeed, a shaggy, wild-looking figure, thin-faced, sallow, with filmy, restless eyes and a black, coarse mat of hair and beard. He wore the same dress of hairy cloth that the picture in the public journal had represented. The heavy brogans were wet and soaked with water, his legs, showing above the shoe-tops, were lean and hairy. A little cluster of his disciples, or attendants, surrounded him; some of them were eating their food, others, who had finished, were lying stretched upon the ground talking in an undertone. They were all rough, common-looking men, several of them apparently fishermen. Surrounding this group, and at a little distance, the people stood in a crowd looking intently at the Baptist. The committee also stood for a while looking at him; then Dr. Caiaphas came forward.
As the priest approached, the Baptist looked towards him with vacant, lustreless eyes. The sun suddenly came out from behind a passing cloud and shone full upon his face, but he did not wink his eyes nor shade them from the glare.
“My friend,” said the rector of the Church of the Advent, “my name is Theodore Caiaphas. I do not know whether you have heard of me or not, but I have heard of you. I am, as you see, an ordained priest. I and my friends”–here he indicated the others of the committee–“have come down to learn just what it is you preach, just what your opinions are, and just what you advocate. Will you tell me, first of all, who you are?”
John sat looking intently but vacantly at him. He did not speak for a little while. Then he said, in a sudden, loud voice, “I am not the Christ.”
“So I understand,” said Dr. Caiaphas. “But are you a prophet–such a one, for instance, as Elijah?”
“I am not,” said the fanatic, still in the same loud voice.
“Ah! Then you are not even