“Thirty pieces of silver.”
Kaiaphas smiled and even the senile Annas smiled also. A merry smile flitted over all the haughty faces: and he of the birdlike countenance even laughed. Paling perceptibly Judas broke in:
“Quite so. Quite so. Of course, a very small sum, but is Judas dissatisfied? Does Judas cry out that he was robbed? He is content. Did he not aid a sacred cause? A sacred cause, to be sure. Do not the wisest of men listen now to Judas of Kerioth and think: ‘He is one of us, Judas of Kerioth, he is our brother, our friend, Judas of Kerioth, the Traitor.’ Does not Annas long to kneel before Judas and kiss his hand? Only Judas will not suffer it, for he is a coward, he fears that Annas might bite.”
Kaiaphas commanded:
“Drive this dog away. Why is he barking here?”
“Go hence. We have no time to listen to thy babbling,” indifferently remarked Annas.
Judas straightened up and shut his eyes. That hypocrisy which he had so lightly borne all his life he felt now as an insupportable burden, and with one movement of his eyelids he cast it off. And when he looked up again at Annas his glance was frank and straight and dreadful in its naked truthfulness. But they paid no attention even to this.
“Wouldst thou be driven out with rods?” shouted Kaiaphas.
Suffocating with the burden of terrible words which he sought to lift higher and higher as if to cast them down upon the heads of the judges Judas hoarsely inquired:
“And do ye know who He was, He whom ye yesterday condemned and crucified?”