Look--at dawn, the other day, I was out in the wood. I came
upon a little rabbit in a trap; a little, pretty, soft black-and-white
thing, quite young. It was screaming in its horrible misery; it
had been screaming all night. Its thighs were broken in the iron teeth;
the trap held it tight; it could not escape, it could only
scream--scream--scream. All in vain. When I had set it free it was
mangled as if a wolf had gnawed it; the iron teeth had bitten through
the fur, and the flesh, and the bone; it had lost so much blood, and it
was in so much pain, that it could not live. I laid it down in the
bracken, and put water to its mouth, and did what I could; but it was of
no use. It had been too much hurt. It died as the sun rose; a little,
harmless, shy, happy thing, you know, that never killed any creature,
and only asked to nibble a leaf or two, or sleep in a little round hole,
and run about merry and free. How can one care for a God since He lets
these things be?"

Arslan smiled as he heard.

"Child,--men care for a god only as a god means a good to them. Men are
heirs of heaven, they say; and, in right of their heritage, they make
life hell to every living thing that dares dispute the world with them.
You do not understand that,--tut! You are not human then. If you were
human, you would begrudge a blade of grass to a rabbit, and arrogate to
yourself a lease of immortality."

* * *

"Of a winter night," she said, slowly, "I have heard old Pitchou read
aloud to Flamma, and she reads of their God, the one they hang
everywhere on the crosses here; and the story ran that the populace
scourged and nailed to death the one whom they knew afterwards, when too
late, to have been the great man that they looked for, and that, being
bidden to make their choice of one to save, they chose to ransom and
honour a thief: one called Barabbas. Is it true?--if the world's choice
were wrong once, why not twice?"

Arslan smiled; the smile she knew so well, and which had no more warmth
than the ice floes of his native seas.

"Why not twice? Why not a thousand times? A thief has the world's
sympathies always. It is always the Barabbas--the trickster in talent,
the forger of stolen wisdom, the bravo of political crime, the huckster
of plundered thoughts, the charlatan of false art, whom the vox populi
elects and sets free, and sends on his way rejoicing. 'Will ye have
Christ or Barabbas?' Every generation is asked the sa