events.

Pilate waxed eloquent over the diverse sects and the fanatic uprisings
and riotings that were continually occurring.

"Lodbrog," he said, "one can never tell what little summer cloud of their
hatching may turn into a thunderstorm roaring and rattling about one's
ears. I am here to keep order and quiet. Despite me they make the place
a hornets' nest. Far rather would I govern Scythians or savage Britons
than these people who are never at peace about God. Right now there is a
man up to the north, a fisherman turned preacher, and miracle-worker, who
as well as not may soon have all the country by the ears and my recall on
its way from Rome."

This was the first I had heard of the man called Jesus, and I little
remarked it at the time. Not until afterward did I remember him, when
the little summer cloud had become a full-fledged thunderstorm.

"I have had report of him," Pilate went on. "He is not political. There
is no doubt of that. But trust Caiaphas, and Hanan behind Caiaphas, to
make of this fisherman a political thorn with which to prick Rome and
ruin me."

"This Caiaphas, I have heard of him as high priest, then who is this
Hanan?" I asked.

"The real high priest, a cunning fox," Pilate explained. "Caiaphas was
appointed by Gratus, but Caiaphas is the shadow and the mouthpiece of
Hanan."

"They have never forgiven you that little matter of the votive shields,"
Miriam teased.

Whereupon, as a man will when his sore place is touched, Pilate launched
upon the episode, which had been an episode, no more, at the beginning,
but which had nearly destroyed him. In all innocence before his palace
he had affixed two shields with votive inscriptions. Ere the consequent
storm that burst on his head had passed the Jews had written their
complaints to Tiberius, who approved them and reprimanded Pilate.

I was glad, a little later, when I could have talk with Miriam. Pilate's
wife had found opportunity to tell me about her. She was of old royal
stock. Her sister was wife of Philip, tetrarch of Gaulonitis and
Batanaea. Now this Philip was brother to Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee
and Peraea, and both were sons of Herod, called by the Jews the "Great."
Miriam, as I understood, was at home in the courts of both tetrarchs,
being herself of the blood. Also, when a girl, she had been betrothed to
Archelaus at the time he was ethnarch of Jerusalem. She had a goodly
fortune in her own right, so that marr