"Yes, yes," cried the band, laughing, "that should be, as it is said, an ear for an ear!"
"Ha, ha, ha, a good idea!" laughed Panther, "but that rule would here find no application, for Malchus has his ear back again."
During this time, while the soldiers were laughing and talking, Hagar was curiously looking at Peter. Immediately a pause took place, Hagar said to Peter, "I have been observing thee for some time. Now, if I do not mistake, thou art one of the disciples of the Galilean. Yes, yes, thou wert with Jesus of Nazareth."
Peter started up from the fire over which he had been warming his hands and stammered out, "I? No, I am not. Woman, I know him not, neither know I what thou sayest."
When Hagar thus spoke all the soldiers looked at Peter, who fearing his attack on Malchus might be resented, tried to slip through the band and escape unobserved. Passing the fire, he came close to the other waiting maid, Sarah, who, looking him full in the face, said in a shrill voice, "See, this man was also with Jesus of Nazareth."
The attention of the whole band being aroused, they all clustered around Peter, asking, "Art thou also one of the disciples?"
Levi said, "Thou art one of them, quite certainly."
Peter in the midst of armed and violent men, looked confusedly from side to side and declared, "Upon my soul—I am not—I do not know the man."
Even as he spoke the cock crew, but the rattle of the weapons of the soldiers and imminent menace of a violent death left him no leisure to attend to anything but his own safety, for a soldier at the same moment exclaimed, "Look at this man. Of a truth he was also with him."
Then said Peter stoutly, "I know not what ye have to do with me. What does this man matter to me?"