Just at that time the Son of Man, weary, dusty, wayworn, was talking with the lawyers, giving utterance to those three great parables–the last of all He gave to the world. The first parable–the man who had two sons, the one of whom said, I will not go work in the vineyard, and yet went; the other of whom said, I will go, and went not. The second parable–the master of the vineyard who sent his servant to the husbandmen, who stoned him; then his son to the same husbandmen, who killed him outright. The third parable–that of how the king made a marriage feast for his son and yet had to send into the highways and byways for guests. Of how one guest came without a wedding garment, and, as a punishment, therefore, was cast into outer darkness where there was wailing and gnashing of teeth. The people listened and did not understand, and Gilderman drove away from Divine Truth in his coupé.
“By George!” said Lawton, as the cab worked its way with difficulty out of the press of vehicles, “isn’t this a lovely state of affairs? I came down from the country yesterday afternoon. I never saw such a sight in my life. Half the trees in the park are stripped as bare as poles. We went by one place where they’d been spreading branches in the street, and everything all a-clutter. It’s a beastly shame, I say, that Pilate and Herod don’t do something to stop it all.”
As the coupé drove past the armory they saw that the authorities were at last evidently taking some steps to prevent any fatal culmination of the disturbance. The great armory doors stood wide open, and a crowd of people were gathered about. A couple of soldiers stood on guard, erect, motionless, endeavoring to appear oblivious to the interest of the clustered group of faces looking at them.
“I am glad to see that, anyhow,” said Gilderman, pointing with his cigarette towards the armory.
XV
JUDAS
THE burden of prosecution having devolved upon the Ecclesiastical Court, a decision was not long in being reached. Again it was the universally voiced opinion that it was better that one man should die rather than that a whole nation should perish. It now remained only to arrest the creator of this divine disturbance of mundane peace.
That same afternoon Mr. Inkerman, the lawyer, called on Bishop Caiaphas to say that a follower of the Man had been found who would be willing, he, Inkerman, believed, to betray his Master to the authorities. It would, he opined, be out of the question to attempt an arrest in the midst of the turbulent mob that surrounded Him; such an attempt would be almost certain to precipitate a riot. But if this fellow could be persuaded or bought to disclose where his Master slept at night, the arrest could be made without exciting any disturbance.