ed
lightly:

"It seems to me, my dear, that you take things with a high hand. It may be
that you forget yourself."

"I take them from where I am," she cried. "As for forgetfulness, remember
that my grandfather was satrap of Syria, my father after him, while
yours----"

"Yes, yes, I dare say. He is not in power now; I am."

"Not here, Antipas, nor in Rome. I appeal to Pilate."

The tetrarch rose from the throne. The elders whispered together. Pilate
visibly was perplexed. Remembering Mary as he did, he looked upon the
incident as a family quarrel, one in which it would be unseemly for him to
interfere, and which none the less disturbed the decorum of his court.

Caiaphas edged up to the tetrarch, but the latter brushed him aside.

"The hetaira is right," he exclaimed. "I am not in power here. If I were,
she should be lapidated."

And, preceded by the butler, Antipas passed through the parting ranks to
the vestibule beyond.

The perplexity of the procurator increased. He did not in the least
understand. To him Mary stood in the same relation to Antipas that
Cleopatra had to Herod. There had been a feud between the tetrarch and
himself, one recently mended, and which he had no wish to renew. Yet
manifestly Antipas was aggrieved, and his own path in the matter by no
means clear.

"Bah!" he muttered, in the consoling undertone of thought, "what are their
beastly barbarian manners to me?"

These reflections Caiaphas interrupted.

"We are waiting, my lord, for the sentence to be pronounced."

The tone he used was not, however, indicative of patience, and in
conjunction with the incident that had just occurred it irritated and
jarred. Besides, Pilate did not care to be prompted. It was for him to
speak first. He strangled an oath, and, gathering some fringe of the
majesty of Rome, he announced very measuredly:

"You have brought this man before me as a rebel. I have examined him and
find no ground for the charge. His ruler, the tetrarch, has also examined
him, and by him too he has been acquitted. But in view of the fact that he
appears to have contravened some one or another of your laws I order him
to be scourged and to be liberated."

With that he turned to the prisoner. During the entire proceedings the
attitude of Jesus had not altered. He stood as a disinterested spectator
might--one whom chance had brought that way and there hemmed in--his eyes on
remote, inaccessible horizons, the tongue silent, the h