seditious, and as such to be
abolished. The difficulty was to abolish him and yet conciliate the mob.

It was then that the Sanhedrim took counsel. As a result, and with the
hope of entrapping him into some blasphemous utterance on which a charge
would lie, they sent meek-eyed Scribes to question him concerning the
authority that he claimed. He routed the meek-eyed Scribes. Then, fancying
that he might be seduced into some expression which could be construed as
treason, they sent young and earnest men to learn from him their duty to
Rome. The young and earnest men returned crestfallen and abashed.

The elders, nonplussed, debated. A levite suspected that the casuistry and
marvellous cures of the Nazarene must be due to a knowledge of the
incommunicable name, Shemhammephorash, seared on stone in the thunders of
Sinai, and which to utter was to summon life or beckon death. Another had
heard that while in Galilee he was believed to be in league with
Baal-Zebub, Lord of Flies.

To this gossip no attention was paid. Annas, merely--the old high-priest,
father-in-law of Caiaphas, who officiated in his stead--laughed to himself.
There was no such stone, there was no such god. Another idea had been
welcomed. A festival was in progress; there was gayety in the
neighborhood, drinking too; and as over a million of pilgrims were herded
together, now and then an offence occurred. The previous night, for
instance, a woman had been arrested for illicit commerce.

Annas tapped on his chin. He had the pompous air of a chameleon, the same
long, thin lips, the large, protruding eyes.

"Take her before the Galilean," he said. "He claims to be a rabbi; he must
know the Law. If he acquit her, it is heresy, and for that a charge will
lie. Does he condemn her he is at our mercy, for he will have alienated
the mob."

A smile of perfect understanding passed like a vagrant breeze across the
faces of the elders, and the levites were ordered to lead the prisoner to
the Christ.

They found him in the Woman's Court. From a lateral chamber a priest,
unfit for other than menial services because of a carbuncle on his lip,
dropped the wood he was sorting for the altar and gazed curiously at the
advancing throng, in which the prisoner was.

She must have been very fair, but now her features were distorted with
anguish, veiled with shame. The blue robe she wore was torn, and a sleeve
rent to the shoulder disclosed a bare white arm. She was a wife, a