"My men I ordered then to take and bear
Their prisoner to the city; and at once
They moved away, I, seeing not our guide,
Cried, 'Judas!' but no answer: then a groan
So sad and deep it startled me. I turned,
And there against the wall, with ghastly face,
And eyeballs starting in a frenzied glare,
As in a fit, lay Judas; his weak arms
Hung lifeless down, his mouth half open twitched,
His hands were clutched and clinched into his robes,
And now and then his breast heaved with a gasp.
Frightened I dashed some water in his face,
Spoke to him, lifted him, and rubbed his hands.
At last the sense came back into his eyes,
Then with a sudden spasm fled again,
And to the ground he dropped. I searched him o'er,
Fearing some mortal wound, yet none I found.
Then with a gasp again the life returned,
And stayed, but still with strong convulsion twitched.
'Speak, Judas! Speak!' I cried. What does this mean?
No answer! 'Speak, man!' Then at last he groaned.
'Go, leave me, leave me, Lysias. Oh, my God!
What have I done? Oh, Christus! Master, Lord.
Forgive me, oh, forgive me!' Then a cry
Of agony that pierced me to the heart,
As groveling on the ground he turned away
And hid his face, and shuddered in his robes.
Was this the man whose face an hour ago
Shone with a joy so strange? What means it all?
Is this a sudden madness? 'Speak!' I cried.
'What means this, Judas? Be a man and speak?'
Yet there he lay, and neither moved nor spoke.
I thought that he had fainted, till at last,
Sudden he turned, grasped my arm, and cried,
'Say, Lysias, is this true, or am I mad?'
'What true?' I said. 'True that you seized the Lord!
You could not seize him—he is God the Lord!
I thought I saw you seize him. Yet I know
That was impossible, for he is God!
And yet you live—you live. He spared you, then.
Where am I? what has happened? A black cloud
Came o'er me when you laid your hands on him.
Where are they all? Where is he? Lysias, speak?'
"'Judas,' I said, 'what folly is all this?
Christus my men have bound and borne away!
The rest have fled. Rouse now and come with me;
My men await me, rouse yourself and come!'
"Throwing his arms up, in a fit he fell,
With a loud shriek that pierced the silent night.
I could not stay, but, calling instant aid,
We bore him quick to the adjacent house.
And placing him in kindly charge, I left,
Joining my men who stayed for me below.
"Straight to the high priest's house we hurried on,
And Christus in an inner room we placed,
Set at his door a guard, and then came out.
After a time there crept into the hall
Where round the blazing coals we sat, a man,
Who in the corner crouched. 'What man are you?'
Cried some one; and I turning, looked at him.
'Twas Peter. ''Tis a fellow of that band
That followed Christus, and believed in him.'
''Tis false!' cried Peter; and he cursed and swore.
'I know him not—I never saw the man.'
But I said nothing. Soon he went away.
"That night I saw not Judas. The next day,
Ghastly, clay-white, a shadow of a man,
With robes all soiled and torn, and tangled beard,
Into the chamber where the council sat
Came feebly staggering: scarce should I have known
'Twas Judas, with that haggard, blasted face:
So had that night's great horror altered him.
As one all blindly walking in a dream
He to the table came—against it leaned—
Glared wildly round a while; then, stretching forth,
from his torn robes, a trembling hand, flung down,
As if a snake had stung him, a small purse,
That broke and scattered its white coins about,
And, with a shrill voice, cried, 'Take back the purse
'Twas not for that foul dross I did the deed—
'Twas not for that—oh, horror! not for that!
But that I did believe he was the Lord;
And that he is the Lord I still believe.
But oh, the sin!—the sin! I have betrayed
The innocent blood, and I am lost!—am lost!'
So crying, round his face his robes he threw,
And blindly rushed away; and we, aghast,
Looked round—and no one for a moment spoke.
"Seeing that face, I could but fear the end;
For death was in it, looking through his eyes.
Nor could I follow to arrest the fate
That drove him madly on with scorpion whip.
"At last the duty of the day was done,
And night came on. Forth from the gates I went,
Anxious and pained by many a dubious thought,
To seek for Judas, and to comfort him.
The sky was dark with heavy lowering clouds;
A lifeless, stifling air weighed on the world;
A dreadful silence like a nightmare lay
Crouched on its bosom, waiting, grim and grey.
In horrible suspense of some dread thing.
A creeping sense of death, a sickening smell,
Infected the dull breathing of the wind.
A thrill of ghosts went by me now and then,
And made my flesh creep as I wandered on.
At last I came to where a cedar stretched
Its black arms out beneath a dusky rock,
And, passing through its shadow, all at once
I started; for against the dubious light
A dark and heavy mass that to and fro
Slung slowly with its weight, before me grew.
A sick dread sense came over me; I stopped—
I could not stir. A cold and clammy sweat
Oozed out all over me; and all my limbs,
Bending with tremulous weakness like a child's,
Gave way beneath me. Then a sense of shame
Aroused me. I advanced, stretched forth my hand
And pushed the shapeless mass; and at my touch
It yielding swung—the branch above it creaked—
And back returning struck against my face.
A human body! Was it dead or not?
Swiftly my sword I drew and cut it down,
And on the sand all heavily it dropped.
I plucked the robes away, exposed the face—
'Twas Judas, as I feared, cold, stiff, and dead;
That suffering heart of his had ceased to beat."
Thus Lysias spoke, and ended. I confess
This story of poor Judas touched me much.
What horrible revulsions must have passed
Across that spirit in those few last hours!
What storms, that tore up life even to its roots!
Say what you will—grant all the guilt—and still
What pangs of dread remorse—what agonies
Of desperate repentance, all too late,
In that wild interval between the crime
And its last sad atonement!—life, the while,
Laden with horror all too great to bear,
And pressing madly on to death's abyss;
This was no common mind that thus could feel—
No vulgar villain sinning for reward!
Was he a villain lost to sense of shame?
Ay, so say John and Peter and the rest;
And yet—and yet this tale that Lysias tells
Weighs with me more the more I ponder it;
For thus I put it: Either Judas was,
As John affirms, a villain and a thief,
A creature lost to shame and base at heart—
Or else, which is the view that Lysias takes,
He was a rash and visionary man
Whose faith was firm, who had no thought of crime,
But whom a terrible mistake drove mad.
Take but John's view, and all to me is blind.
Call him a villain who, with greed of gain,
For thirty silver pieces sold his Lord.
Does not the bribe seem all too small and mean?
He held the common purse, and, were he thief,
Had daily power to steal, and lay aside
A secret and accumulating fund;
So doing, he had nothing risked of fame,
While here he braved the scorn of all the world.
Besides, why chose they for their almoner
A man so lost to shame, so foul with greed?
Or why, from some five-score of trusted men,
Choose him as one apostle among twelve?
Or why, if he were known to be so vile,
(And who can hide his baseness at all times?)
Keep him in close communion to the last?
Naught in his previous life, or acts, or words,
Shows this consummate villain that, full-grown,
Leaps all at once to such a height of crime.
Again, how comes it that this wretch, whose heart
Is eased to shame, flings back the paltry bribe?
And, when he knows his master is condemned,
Rushes in horror out to seek his death?
Whose fingers pointed at him in the crowd?
Did all men flee his presence till he found
Life too intolerable? Nay; not so!
Death came too close upon the heels of crime,
He had but done what all his tribe deemed just:
All the great mass—I mean the upper class—
The Rabbis, all the Pharisees and Priests
Ay, and the lower mob as well who cried,
"Give us Barabbas! Christus to the cross!"
These men were all of them on Judas's side,
And Judas had done naught against the law.
Were he this villain, he had but to say,
"I followed Christus till I found at last
He aimed at power to overthrow the State.
I did the duty of an honest man.
I traitor! you are traitors who reprove."
Besides, such villains scorn the world's reproof.