"Invoke the stars," said Barabbas, with a scornful laugh. "You'll be right then. They know nothing of you and your God. They're made of common dust. They themselves, and all the beings on them, live in the same base struggle as does our earth and everything on it. An enormous dust-heap, swarming with vermin, that's all."
Dismas sat on his stone with folded hands, pale as a corpse.
"Barabbas, my comrade," he said at last, "it is your bad angel that speaks."
"Why don't you praise him, Dismas? Why don't you shout for joy? My message has redeemed you. You think because you've attacked, slain, and plundered unsuspecting travellers that everlasting hell must be your portion. My strong message does away with hell. Do you see that?"
The other replied: "I heard a prophet in the wilderness cry that a man whom God had damned could be saved by repentance. Your damnation, Barabbas, never! No Almighty God! Everything a dry, swarming dust-heap, and no escape! Frightful, frightful!"
"Do you know, Dismas, your lamentations don't amuse me?" said the other, supporting himself on his hands and knees like a four-footed beast. "I have a more important matter on hand. I'm hungry."
Dismas jumped on his stone, and made ready for flight. "If he's hungry, he's capable of killing and eating me."
Barabbas had assumed a listening attitude, and his eagle eyes stared out into the desert. A red banner was visible between the rocks and stones; it moved and came nearer. It was a woman's red garment. She rode on an ass, and seen closer, carried a child in her arms. A man, tired out, limped beside her, leading the ass.
"Dismas, there's someone," whispered Barabbas, grasping the handle of his weapon. "Come, let's hide behind the stone until they come up."
"You'll fall on those defenceless folk from an ambush?"