n the
right and left, and the attention they gave him, made it clear that
if he were not himself the object moving the party, he was at least
in some way connected with the object--a witness or a guide, possibly
an informer. So if it could be found who he was the business in hand
might be shrewdly guessed. With great assurance, Ben-Hur fell in on
the right of the priest, and walked along with him. Now if the man
would lift his head! And presently he did so, letting the light of
the lanterns strike full in his face, pale, dazed, pinched with
dread; the beard roughed; the eyes filmy, sunken, and despairing.
In much going about following the Nazarene, Ben-Hur had come to
know his disciples as well as the Master; and now, at sight of
the dismal countenance, he cried out,

"The 'Scariot!"

Slowly the head of the man turned until his eyes settled upon
Ben-Hur, and his lips moved as if he were about to speak; but the
priest interfered.

"Who art thou? Begone!" he said to Ben-Hur, pushing him away.

The young man took the push good-naturedly, and, waiting an opportunity,
fell into the procession again. Thus he was carried passively along down
the street, through the crowded lowlands between the hill Bezetha
and the Castle of Antonia, and on by the Bethesda reservoir to the
Sheep Gate. There were people everywhere, and everywhere the people
were engaged in sacred observances.

It being Passover night, the valves of the Gate stood open. The
keepers were off somewhere feasting. In front of the procession
as it passed out unchallenged was the deep gorge of the Cedron,
with Olivet beyond, its dressing of cedar and olive trees darker of
the moonlight silvering all the heavens. Two roads met and merged
into the street at the gate--one from the northeast, the other
from Bethany. Ere Ben-Hur could finish wondering whether he were
to go farther, and if so, which road was to be taken, he was led
off down into the gorge. And still no hint of the purpose of the
midnight march.

Down the gorge and over the bridge at the bottom of it. There was
a great clatter on the floor as the crowd, now a straggling rabble,
passed over beating and pounding with their clubs and staves.
A little farther, and they turned off to the left in the direction
of an olive orchard enclosed by a stone wall in view from the road.
Ben-Hur knew there was nothing in the place but old gnarled trees,
the grass, and a trough hewn out of a rock for the treading of o