e," said Judas, bitterly,
"and none for you. The blood of the innocent cries aloud for
vengeance."

"What has driven you crazy? Speak, but speak with reverence--thou
standest before the Sanhedrin," said Caiaphas.

Then said Judas passionately: "You are determined to deliver him up to
death; him who is free from all guilt. You must not do it. I have a
protest to make against it. You have made me a traitor. Your accursed
pieces of silver!"

Annas interrupted him, saying, "Thou didst propose it thyself and close
the bargain."

Then said the priest unto him, "Recollect thyself, Judas, thou hast
received what thou didst desire; and if thou behavest thyself decently
thou canst still----"

Judas interrupted him. "I will have nothing more. I tear up your
shameful bargain. Let the innocent go."

"Be off, madman," said a rabbi angrily.

But Judas, taking no heed, knelt and stretched his hands toward
Caiaphas. "I demand the release of the innocent. My hands shall be
free from his blood."

"What," said the rabbi, "thou contemptible traitor, wilt thou dictate
to the Sanhedrin? Know this, thy Master must die, and thou hast
delivered him to death."

And all the priests and Pharisees cried aloud, "He must die."

And Judas, with staring eyes, as one demented, repeated, "Die? Then I
am a traitor. I have given him up to death!" He sank down like a man
crushed by a blow, and then springing up and breaking out into wild
passion, he shouted aloud: "May ten thousand devils from hell tear me
in pieces! Let them grind me to powder! Here, ye bloodhounds, take
your accursed blood money!" And with that he snatched the bag from his
girdle and flung it violently before the seat of the high priest.

"Why didst thou let thyself be made the tool for a transaction which
thou didst not weigh beforehand?" said Caiaphas.

"Yes," cried several, "it is your own business."

Then shouted Judas wildly, "May my soul be damned, my body burnt
asunder, and ye--"

"Silence and out from here," cried all the priests together.

"And you," shouted Judas, above them all, "you will sink with me into
the lowest hell!" He then rushed from the hall.

After a pause, during which the chief priests and rulers looked at each
other in silence, the money lay unnoticed on the floor. Caiaphas said,
"What a fearful man!"

"I had some foreboding of this," said Annas.

"It is his own fault," remarked a priest.

Then said Caiaphas, "Let him