"What is the meaning of this tumult?" said Ben Hesed again, and this time he put his question to a respectable-looking man in the garb of a carpenter, who stood eying the scene with an inscrutable expression upon his face.
The man turned at the sound of his voice, and looked at him suspiciously. "Whence dost thou come that thou shouldst ask?" he said coldly. Then with another searching glance he added, "They are merely torturing some of the followers of the Nazarene under the scourge. It is lawful."
"Lawful!" cried Ben Hesed. "Who is it that dares call such an outrage lawful? Room here! that I may look further into this matter."
But the carpenter laid a warning hand upon his arm. "Hist, man," he whispered. "If thou art indeed a friend of the Nazarenes, hold thy peace; else wilt thou shortly find thyself where thou canst advantage neither thyself nor them that believe."
His last words were drowned in the savage yell with which the multitude greeted the appearance of a detachment of temple police armed with drawn swords. These marched rapidly down the steps of the synagogue--the crowd opening to let them pass--half dragging, half carrying the limp figures of two men, whose blood-stained garments and drawn, ghastly faces betrayed what they had suffered within. After them poured out the congregation, gesticulating and talking excitedly.
"Stubborn fools," Ben Hesed heard one man say. "They have but to confess the crucified Nazarene accursed, to escape all. If they will not do that, let them die."
"Where are they taking these men?" said Ben Hesed to the carpenter, who still stood at his elbow.
"To the prison, to recover from this scourging, when they will receive another--or worse--if they repent not of their blasphemous folly," answered the man in a hard voice. "Let us get out of this crowd, for God's sake," he whispered in the next breath, "or we shall both be seized."
The upper end of the street was comparatively clear of people, and here they presently found themselves.
"Thou art then a stranger in Jerusalem?" queried the carpenter, wiping the great drops from his forehead. "And a follower of the man Jesus? Ay, I thought so. Verily, thou must needs know that it were best to get thee back into thine own country--and as speedily as possible; Jerusalem is no place for them that believe. I myself am going this very day with my wife and little ones; only this morning I saw the spies of Saul in our street."