ountered Miriam in the press. She was on foot, attended only by a
woman. It was no time in such turbulence for her to be abroad garbed as
became her station. Through her sister she was indeed sister-in-law to
Antipas for whom few bore love. So she was dressed discreetly, her face
covered, so that she might pass as any Jewish woman of the lower orders.
But not to my eye could she hide that fine stature of her, that carriage
and walk, so different from other women's, of which I had already dreamed
more than once.

Few and quick were the words we were able to exchange, for the way jammed
on the moment, and soon my men and horses were being pressed and jostled.
Miriam was sheltered in an angle of house-wall.

"Have they got the fisherman yet?" I asked.

"No; but he is just outside the wall. He has ridden up to Jerusalem on
an ass, with a multitude before and behind; and some, poor dupes, have
hailed him as he passed as King of Israel. That finally is the pretext
with which Hanan will compel Pilate. Truly, though not yet taken, the
sentence is already written. This fisherman is a dead man."

"But Pilate will not arrest him," I defended. Miriam shook her head.

"Hanan will attend to that. They will bring him before the Sanhedrim.
The sentence will be death. They may stone him."

"But the Sanhedrim has not the right to execute," I contended.

"Jesus is not a Roman," she replied. "He is a Jew. By the law of the
Talmud he is guilty of death, for he has blasphemed against the law."

Still I shook my head.

"The Sanhedrim has not the right."

"Pilate is willing that it should take that right."

"But it is a fine question of legality," I insisted. "You know what the
Romans are in such matters."

"Then will Hanan avoid the question," she smiled, "by compelling Pilate
to crucify him. In either event it will be well."

A surging of the mob was sweeping our horses along and grinding our knees
together. Some fanatic had fallen, and I could feel my horse recoil and
half rear as it tramped on him, and I could hear the man screaming and
the snarling menace from all about rising to a roar. But my head was
over my shoulder as I called back to Miriam:

"You are hard on a man you have said yourself is without evil."

"I am hard upon the evil that will come of him if he lives," she replied.

Scarcely did I catch her words, for a man sprang in, seizing my bridle-
rein and leg and struggling to unhorse me. With