"What means this madman?" cried the Procurator. "Some of you arrest him!"
"I am not mad! He is innocent! I have betrayed the innocent blood!" cried Iscariot, for it was he, leaping into the space in front of the portico. "Take back thy money, and let this holy Prophet of God go free! I swear to you by the altar he is innocent, and if thou harm him thou wilt be accursed with the vengeance of Jehovah! Take back thy silver, for he is innocent!"
"What is that to us? See thou to that!" answered Abner the priest, haughtily, while the eyes of Caiaphas, falling under the withering glance of the Roman Procurator, betrayed his guilt.
"Wilt thou not release him if I give thee back the pieces?" cried Judas, in accents of despair, taking Caiaphas by the mantle and then kneeling to him imploringly.
But Caiaphas angrily shook him off. At last, in a frenzied manner, he threw himself at the knees of Jesus, and cried in the most thrilling accents:
"Oh, Master! Master! Thou hast the power! Release thyself!"
"No, Judas," answered the Prophet, shaking his head and gazing down compassionately upon his betrayer, and without one look of resentment at his having betrayed him, "mine hour is come! For this hour I came into the world!"
"I believed surely thou wouldst not suffer thyself to be arrested. It is my avarice that hath slain thee! Oh, God! Oh, God! I see now it is too late!" Thus crying in a voice of despair, he arose and rushed, with his face hid in his cloak, forth from the presence of all, towards the outer gate.
This extraordinary interruption produced a startling effect upon all present, and a few moments elapsed before Pilate could resume his examination of Jesus, which he did by entering the Judgment Hall and taking his seat on the throne. He then repeated his question, but with more deference than before: "Art thou a king, then?"
"Thou sayest that which I am—a king," Jesus answered, with a dignity truly regal in its bearing; for all the time, bound and marred as he was by the hands of his enemies, pale with suffering and with standing a sleepless and fearful night upon his feet, exposed to cold and to insults, yet he had a kingly air, and there seemed to float about his head a divine glory, as if a sunbeam had been shining down upon him.