“There is actually a rumor abroad to the effect that the Emperor has been stricken with a terrible illness,” observed the leader of the troops. “It also seems very possible to me that your wife’s dream may be a god-sent warning.”
“There’s nothing incredible in this, that Tiberius has sent messengers after the Prophet to summon him to his sick-bed,” agreed the young rhetorician.
The Commander turned with profound seriousness toward Pilate. “If the Emperor has actually taken it into his head to let this miracle-worker be summoned, it were better for you and for all of us that he found him alive.”
Pilate answered irritably: “Is it the darkness that has turned you into children? One would think that you had all been transformed into dream-interpreters and prophets.”
But the courtier continued his argument: “It may not be impossible, perhaps, to save the man’s life, if you sent a swift messenger.”
“You want to make a laughing-stock of me,” answered the Governor. “Tell me, what would become of law and order in this land, if they learned that the Governor pardoned a criminal because his wife has dreamed a bad dream?”
“It is the truth, however, and not a dream, that I have seen Faustina in Jerusalem,” said the young orator.
“I shall take the responsibility of defending my actions before the Emperor,” said Pilate. “He will understand that this visionary, who let himself be misused by my soldiers without resistance, would not have had the power to help him.”
As he was speaking, the house was shaken by a noise like a powerful rolling thunder, and an earthquake shook the ground. The Governor’s palace stood intact, but during some minutes just after the earthquake, a terrific crash of crumbling houses and falling pillars was heard.
As soon as a human voice could make itself heard, the Governor called a slave.