Æmilius, upon receiving this answer, arose and bowed, and then said with the boldness which characterizes him:
"Most gracious and royal Tetrarch, I pray you heed not the charges of these Jews touching this prisoner. They have conceived against him a bitter hatred without just cause. He has done nothing worthy of death. Pilate could find nothing whatsoever in him deserving of the attention of the dignity of a Roman tribunal."
"Let the prisoner fear not," answered Herod, at the same time regarding Jesus attentively as he stood before him in the calm majesty of innocence. "I will not take Pilate's prerogative of judgment out of his hand, so handsomely tendered to me. If he hath blasphemed—Mehercule! the High Priest and priests of the Temple itself," he added, laughing, "do that every day of their lives, for religion is at a low ebb among the hypocritical knaves! I have nothing to do with their charge of blasphemy, or I would have them all stoned to death without mercy. I will first see some miracles wrought by thy far-famed prisoner, noble Æmilius, and then send him back to my illustrious friend Pontius, whom his gods prosper in all things."
Herod, then, fixing his eyes curiously upon Jesus, who had stood silently before him, seemingly the only unmoved person in the vast concourse, said to the soldiers:
"Unbind him! By the staff of Jacob, he hath been roughly handled! Men of Israel, it becomes not such as you to do violence to a man before he is condemned."
While he was speaking John arranged Jesus' mantle about his form. Herod regarded with interest and looks of compassion, the pale and divinely-serene countenance of the prisoner, and seemed struck with the indescribable majesty of his aspect and bearing.
"Art thou the Nazarene Jesus, of whom I have heard so much?" he asked in deferential tones.
"I am he," was the quiet answer.
"Then gladly do I meet thee, for I have long time desired to see thee; and I would fain behold thee do some miracles. Does rumor belie thy powers? What! art thou silent? Dost thou not know who it is that speaks to thee? Come hither, fellow!" he called to a Samaritan muleteer who stood in the crowd, whose oval face and Jewish eyes showed him to be both of Assyrian and Israelitish descent, and whose arm had been taken off by a sword in a contest with Barabbas and his robbers; "come hither, and let this Prophet prove his power and mission by restoring thy arm whole like as the other!"
The man alertly came forward, and all eyes were directed eagerly upon him and upon Jesus; but he thrust the stump of his arm, by Herod's order, in vain before Jesus. The eyes of the Prophet moved not from their meditative look upon the ground.