mple and terse; but above
the Christ appeared a legend in three tongues, in Aramaic, in Greek, and
in Latin:

[Aramaic: Malka di Jehudaje]

_{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON WITH DASIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH TONOS~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}._

Rex Judaeorum.

Caiaphas sprang back as from the point of a sword.

"Malka di Jehudaje!" he bellowed. "King of the Jews! It is a blasphemy, an
iniquity, and an outrage. Centurion, tear it down."

Calcol shrugged his shoulders, and pointed to the palace. "What the
procurator has written he has written," he answered.

In the tone, in the gesture that preceded it, and in its impertinence
Caiaphas read Pilate's one yet supreme revenge, the expression of his
absolute contempt for the whole Sanhedrim and the nation that it ruled.

From the rear the mob jumped at the title as at a catchword. To them the
irony of the procurator presumably was lost.

"King of the Jews!" they shouted. "Malka di Jehudaje, come down from your
cross!"

It was a great festival, and as they jeered at Jesus they enjoyed
themselves hugely.

In their vast delight the voice of Stegas was drowned.

"I am a Roman citizen," he kept repeating, his head swaying, and
indicating with his eyes the wounds in his hands, the torture he endured.
"Kill me," he implored. And finding entreaty idle, he reviled the
centurion, cursed the soldiery, and would have spat at them, but to his
burning throat no spittle came.

The tongue of Dysmas lolled from his mouth. He had not the ability to
speak, even if in speech relief could come. Flame licked at his flesh, his
joints were severing, each artery was a nerve exposed, and something was
crunching his brain. He could no longer groan; he could suffer merely,
such suffering as hell perhaps has failed to contrive, that apogee of
agony which it was left for man to devise.

Stegas, catc