Page:Lazarus, a tale of the world's great miracle.djvu/270

258 that He appealeth but to the sinners and the poor, so that His following is not a powerful one. But, in that He hath raised this Lazarus, it seemeth to me that the danger doth spread higher."

"Yet I know not how we shall take Him," said another; "for the people look upon Him as a God, and He hath ever people around Him."

" 'T will be difficult, but not impossible," said Caiaphas with his cruel, self-sufficient laugh. Had I but known last night that both sat in the house of Simon, he that is the leper, I would have caught the two birds with one net; but that dog, Iscariot, did not dare come till dark, and, when I sent to take them, the house and wayside were thronged with the multitude of perverted fools, and the soldiers feared that to capture them might cause disturbance; for naught desire we less than to fan this fanaticism into a civil war. This also know the Romans. Yet sometimes methinks that Pilate doth, for some purpose, assist the Nazarene to escape, that so a sedition may arise and the Romans may take away our country."

An indignant murmur ran through the little gathering of Pharisees.

"And I hear further from Rome," the High Priest continued pompously, anxious to impress his audience with his superior information and his intimacy with Tiberius, "that they are discussing before the Senate whether to add this Nazarene to their twelve gods and thus have thirteen."

A derisive laugh rose from the assembled council; laughter that might have been aimed either at the Nazarene's claim to be regarded as a God, or at the