"You do not seem to lack the virtue of pride," continued Pilate, "and that's in your favour. You know, of course, in whose presence you stand, in the presence of one who has the power, to put you to death, or to set you free."
Jesus was still silent.
The crowd which already filled the large courtyard became more and more noisy and unmanageable. Rabbis slipped through it in order to fan the fire, and on all sides sentence of death was eagerly demanded. Pilate shrugged his shoulders. He did not understand the people. But he could not condemn an innocent man to death. He would let the Nazarene just as He was step out on to the balcony. He himself took a torch from a slave's hand to light up the pitiful figure. "Look," he called down to the crowd, "look at the poor fellow!"
"To the gallows with him! To the cross with him!" shouted the crowd.
"If," said Pilate, preserving his ironical tone, "if you do not want to miss your Passover spectacle, go out there; no fear of criminals not being crucified to-day. What do you say to Barabbas, the desert king? O ye men of Jerusalem, be satisfied with one king."
"We want to see this Jesus crucified," raged the people.
"But why, by Jupiter? I cannot see that He is guilty of anything."
One of the High Priests came up to him.
"If you set free this blasphemer, this demagogue, who, so He says, intends to redeem the Jewish nation from bondage, who has the devil's eloquence with which to influence the masses, if you let this man go about among the people again, then you are your Emperor's bitterest enemy. Then we shall ask for a governor who is as true to the Emperor as we are!"
"You would be more imperial than Pontius Pilate!" He threw out that sentence to them, measuring their figures with contempt. Whenever Rome touched any of their chartered rights they seethed with anger; but whenever they needed power to accomplish some purpose hostile to the people, they cringed to Rome. They recognised no people and no Emperor; their Temple-law was all in all to them. And they dared to advise the Governor to be imperial! But the crowd murmured angrily. The storm of passion was increasing in the courtyard. A thousand voices threatening, shouting shrilly, demanded the Nazarene's death. At that moment his wife sent to Pilate and reminded him of her dream. He was inclined to set the accused free at once. Then in the dim light of the torches and the dawning day a dark mass appeared above the heads of the people. It was one of those criminals' stakes with the cross-beam like those erected out at Golgotha, only more massive and imposing. They had dragged the cross here, and when it became visible to the crowd they broke out in heightened fury: "Crucify Him! Crucify Him! Jesus or Pilate!"