"Hanan will attend to that. They will bring him before the Sanhedrim. The sentence will be death. They may stone him.""But the Sanhedrim has not the right to execute," I contended.
"Jesus is not a Roman," she replied. "He is a Jew. By the law of the Talmud he is guilty of death, for he has blasphemed against the law."Still I shook my head.
"The Sanhedrim has not the right."
"Pilate is willing that it should take that right.""But it is a fine question of legality," I insisted. "You know what the Romans are in such matters.""Then will Hanan avoid the question," she smiled, "by compelling Pilate to crucify him. In either event it will be well."A surging of the mob was sweeping our horses along and grinding our knees together. Some fanatic had fallen, and I could feel my horse recoil and half rear as it tramped on him, and I could hear the man screaming and the snarling menace from all about rising to a roar.
But my head was over my shoulder as I called back to Miriam:
"You are hard on a man you have said yourself is without evil.""I am hard upon the evil that will come of him if he lives," she replied.
Scarcely did I catch her words, for a man sprang in, seizing my bridle-rein and leg and struggling to unhorse me. With my open palm, leaning forward, I smote him full upon cheek and jaw. My hand covered the face of him, and a hearty will of weight was in the blow. The dwellers in Jerusalem are not used to man's buffets. Ihave often wondered since if I broke the fellow's neck.
Next I saw Miriam was the following day. I met her in the court of Pilate's palace. She seemed in a dream. Scarce her eyes saw me.
Scarce her wits embraced my identity. So strange was she, so in daze and amaze and far-seeing were her eyes, that I was reminded of the lepers I had seen healed in Samaria.
She became herself by an effort, but only her outward self. In her eyes was a message unreadable. Never before had I seen woman's eyes so.
She would have passed me ungreeted had I not confronted her way.
She paused and murmured words mechanically, but all the while her eyes dreamed through me and beyond me with the largeness of the vision that filled them.
"I have seen Him, Lodbrog," she whispered. "I have seen Him.""The gods grant that he is not so ill-affected by the sight of you, whoever he may be," I laughed.
She took no notice of my poor-timed jest, and her eyes remained full with vision, and she would have passed on had I not again blocked her way.
"Who is this he?" I demanded. "Some man raised from the dead to put such strange light in your eyes?""One who has raised others from the dead," she replied. "Truly Ibelieve that He, this Jesus, has raised the dead. He is the Prince of Light, the Son of God. I have seen Him. Truly I believe that He is the Son of God."Little could I glean from her words, save that she had met this wandering fisherman and been swept away by his folly. For surely this Miriam was not the Miriam who had branded him a plague and demanded that he be stamped out as any plague.
"He has charmed you," I cried angrily.
Her eyes seemed to moisten and grow deeper as she gave confirmation.
"Oh, Lodbrog, His is charm beyond all thinking, beyond all describing. But to look upon Him is to know that here is the all-soul of goodness and of compassion. I have seen Him. I have heard Him. I shall give all I have to the poor, and I shall follow Him."Such was her certitude that I accepted it fully, as I had accepted the amazement of the lepers of Samaria staring at their smooth flesh; and I was bitter that so great a woman should be so easily wit-addled by a vagrant wonder-worker.
"Follow him," I sneered. "Doubtless you will wear a crown when he wins to his kingdom."She nodded affirmation, and I could have struck her in the face for her folly. I drew aside, and as she moved slowly on she murmured:
"His kingdom is not here. He is the Son of David. He is the Son of God. He is whatever He has said, or whatever has been said of Him that is good and great.""A wise man of the East," I found Pilate chuckling. "He is a thinker, this unlettered fisherman. I have sought more deeply into him. I have fresh report. He has no need of wonder-workings. He out-sophisticates the most sophistical of them. They have laid traps, and He has laughed at their traps. Look you. Listen to this."Whereupon he told me how Jesus had confounded his confounders when they brought to him for judgment a woman taken in adultery.
"And the tax," Pilate exulted on. "'To Caesar what is Caesar's, to God what is God's,' was his answer to them. That was Hanan's trick, and Hanan is confounded. At last has there appeared one Jew who understands our Roman conception of the State."Next I saw Pilate's wife. Looking into her eyes I knew, on the instant, after having seen Miriam's eyes, that this tense, distraught woman had likewise seen the fisherman.
"The Divine is within Him," she murmured to me. "There is within Him a personal awareness of the indwelling of God.""Is he God?" I queried, gently, for say something I must.
She shook her head.
"I do not know. He has not said. But this I know: of such stuff gods are made.""A charmer of women," was my privy judgment, as I left Pilate's wife walking in dreams and visions.
The last days are known to all of you who read these lines, and it was in those last days that I learned that this Jesus was equally a charmer of men. He charmed Pilate. He charmed me.
After Hanan had sent Jesus to Caiaphas, and the Sanhedrim, assembled in Caiaphas's house, had condemned Jesus to death, Jesus, escorted by a howling mob, was sent to Pilate for execution.
