h-priest a look which was tantamount to a knee pressed on the
midriff. He glanced again at the tablet, then at the prisoner.

"Tell me, do you really claim to be king?"

"Is it your idea of me?" the Christ asked; and in his bearing was a
dignity which did not clash with the charge; "or have others prompted
you?"

"But I am not a Jew," Pilate retorted. "The matter only interests me
officially. It is your hierarchy that bring the charge. Why have they?
What have you done? Tell me," he continued, in Latin, "do you think
yourself King?"

"_Tu dixisti_," Jesus answered, and smiled as he had before, very gravely.
"But my royalty is not of the earth." And with a glance at his bonds, one
which was so significant that it annulled the charge, he added, still in
Latin, "I am Truth, and I preach it."

Pilate with skeptical indulgence shook his head. Truth to him was an
elenchicism, an abstraction of the Platonists, whom in Rome he had
respected for their wisdom and avoided with care. He turned to Caiaphas.
The latter had been regretting the absence of an interpreter. This
amicable conversation, which he did not understand, was not in the least
to his liking, and as Pilate turned to him he frowned in his beard.

"I am unable to find him guilty," the procurator announced. "He may call
himself king, but every philosopher does the same. You might yourself, for
that matter."

"A philosopher, this mesith!" Caiaphas gnashed back. "Why, he seduces the
people; he incites to sedition; he is a rebel to Rome. It is for you, my
lord, to see the empire upheld. Would it be well to have another complaint
laid before the Caesar? Ask yourself, is this Galilean worth it?"

The thrust was as keen and as venomous as the tooth of a rat. Pilate had
been rebuked by the emperor already; he had no wish to incur further
displeasure. Sejanus, the emperor's favorite, to whom he owed his
procuratorship, had for suspected treason been strangled in a dumb dungeon
only a little before. Under Tiberius there was quiet, a future historian
was to note; and Pilate was aware that, should a disturbance occur, the
disturbance would be quelled, but at his expense.

An idea presented itself. "Did I understand you to say he is a Galilean?"
he asked.

"Yes," Caiaphas answered, expecting, perhaps, the usual jibe that was
flung at those who came from there. "Yes, he is a Nazarene."

"Hm. In that case I have no jurisdiction. The tetrarch is my guest; take
your priso