'He dared!'
'Abomination of desolation!'
'Heal the sick on the Sabbath day!'
'What sacrilege!'
'Yes, seigneurs,' replied the high priest, in a mournful voice; 'he has committed this sacrilege.'
'Now, if the young man had not healed the sufferer,' said Aurelia to Jane, smiling, 'I could understand their rage.'
'Such an impiety deserves the worst punishment; for it is impossible to outrage religion more abominably!'
'And do not imagine,' continued Caiphus, 'that the Nazarene dissembles the sacrileges or blushes at them; far from it; he blasphemes to that degree as to say that he laughs at the Sabbath, and that those who observe it are hypocrites.'
A general murmur of indignation acknowledged the words of the high priest, so abominable did the impiety of the Nazarene appear to the guests of Pontius Pilate; but the latter, emptying cup after cup, appeared to trouble himself no further as to what was being said around him.
'No, Seigneur Caiphus,' said the banker Jonas, with an air of amazement; 'if it were not you who affirmed such enormities, I should hesitate to believe them.'