Page:Lazarus, a tale of the world's great miracle.djvu/150

138 Too clever, too learned, was Caiaphas not to know the fast hold the Pharisees had on the people, not to be conscious that this enthralling power of lawyer, scribe, and Pharisee musts needs be broken through before the people could be set free to worship the living God.

Oh, he knew it well, this great High Priest; but a certainty of power in this world was more to him than a shadowy, uncertain place in God's eternity. Ambition, the love of power, the greatest temptations that can assail a man, were too strong for Caiaphas.

The day wore on, and, so absorbed was Caiaphas in his dreams, that he forgot his midday meal and his usual visit to the Synagogue.

The men were long in returning. Hour succeeded hour, and Caiaphas sat wondering why the soldiers came not with the Nazarene. He waited before sending other messengers, for he had given injunctions that no violence was to be used; maybe the Jews, or, at least, the followers of the Nazarene, the twelve who had declared themselves forever on His side, had offered some resistance. Yet it was strange that none came with a message, that there was no uproar, no tumult in the streets. Once he stepped out on to the terrace, and sheltering with his hands his eyes, he scanned Jerusalem, its roofs, its winding streets, the distant groves of palms; but nowhere were crowds, or even groups in sight.

"Perhaps they have killed Him in their zeal," he murmured to himself. As the afternoon wore on, and the glowing Eastern twilight fell almost suddenly, he began to marvel that none had come to