college. Below was the
Christ, bound and guarded. Across the quadrangle was a line of soldiery,
behind it a mob.

The helmets, glancing mail, short skirts, and bare legs of the Romans
contrasted refreshingly with the blossoming garments, effeminate girdles,
frontlets, and horned blue bonnets of the priesthood. And in the riot of
color and glint of steel the Christ, bound as he was, looked, in the
simplicity of his seamless robe, the descendant of a larger sphere. Above,
to the left, Antipas, aroused by the clamor, leaned from a portico.
Opposite where the sunlight fell Mary held her cloak about her.

Caiaphas, a hand indicating Jesus, his head turned to Pilate, was
formulating a complaint. Not indeed that the prisoner had declared himself
a divinity. There were far too many gods in the menagerie of the Pantheon
for a procurator to be the least disturbed at the rumor of a new one. It
was the right to rule, that attribute of the Messiah, on which he intended
the gravamen of the charge should rest. But he began circuitously, feeling
the way, in Greek at that, with an accent which might have been improved.

"And so," he concluded, "in many ways he has transgressed the Law."

"Why don't you judge him by it, then?" asked Pilate, grimly.

A servant approached with a tablet. The procurator glanced at it, looked
up at the man, and motioned him away.

"My lord governor, we have. The Sanhedrim, having found him guilty, has
sentenced him to death. But the Sanhedrim, as you know, may not execute
the sentence. The Senate has deprived us of that right. It is for you, as
its legate, to order it done."

Pilate sneered. "I can't very well, until I know of what he is guilty.
What crime has he committed--written a letter on the Sabbath, or has he
been caught without his phylacteries?"

"He has declared himself Israel's king!"

"Ah!" And Pilate smiled wearily. "You are always expecting one; why not
take him?"

"Why not, my lord? Because it is treason to do so."

Pilate nodded with affected approval. "I admire your zeal." And with a
glance at the prisoner, he added: "You have heard the accusation; defend
yourself. What!" he continued, after a moment, "have you nothing to say?"

Caiaphas exulted openly. The corners of his mouth had the width and
cruelty, and his nostrils the dilation, of a wolf.

"My lord," he cried, "his silence is an admission."

"Hold your tongue! It is for me to question." And therewith Pilate gave
the hig