"Why not? Gods have descended to earth
before."

"Look you," Pilate said. "I have it by creditable report, that after
this Jesus had worked some wonder whereby a multitude was fed on several
loaves and fishes, the foolish Galileans were for making him a king.
Against his will they would make him a king. To escape them he fled into
the mountains. No madness there. He was too wise to accept the fate
they would have forced upon him."

"Yet that is the very trick Hanan would force upon you," Miriam
reiterated. "They claim for him that he would be king of the Jews--an
offence against Roman law, wherefore Rome must deal with him."

Pilate shrugged his shoulders.

"A king of the beggars, rather; or a king of the dreamers. He is no
fool. He is visionary, but not visionary of this world's power. All
luck go with him in the next world, for that is beyond Rome's
jurisdiction."

"He holds that property is sin--that is what hits the Pharisees,"
Ambivius spoke up.

Pilate laughed heartily.

"This king of the beggars and his fellow-beggars still do respect
property," he explained. "For, look you, not long ago they had even a
treasurer for their wealth. Judas his name was, and there were words in
that he stole from their common purse which he carried."

"Jesus did not steal?" Pilate's wife asked.

"No," Pilate answered; "it was Judas, the treasurer."

"Who was this John?" I questioned. "He was in trouble up Tiberias way
and Antipas executed him."

"Another one," Miriam answered. "He was born near Hebron. He was an
enthusiast and a desert-dweller. Either he or his followers claimed that
he was Elijah raised from the dead. Elijah, you see, was one of our old
prophets."

"Was he seditious?" I asked.

Pilate grinned and shook his head, then said:

"He fell out with Antipas over the matter of Herodias. John was a
moralist. It is too long a story, but he paid for it with his head. No,
there was nothing political in that affair."

"It is also claimed by some that Jesus is the Son of David," Miriam said.
"But it is absurd. Nobody at Nazareth believes it. You see, his whole
family, including his married sisters, lives there and is known to all of
them. They are a simple folk, mere common people."

"I wish it were as simple, the report of all this complexity that I must
send to Tiberius," Pilate grumbled. "And now this fisherman is come to
Jerusalem, the place is packed with pilgrims ripe for any troub