Page:Lazarus, a tale of the world's great miracle.djvu/33

Rh brought about? It could but be at night," she went on slowly, like one making a plan while speaking—"could but be at night, when my father writeth and my mother hath gone to sleep. We will robe ourselves like poor women, and carry baskets on our heads, and mingle with the crowd."

The two girls' faces expressed such horror that Rebekah burst out laughing.

"Oh, ye two poor frightened things! Can ye not go where the High Priest's daughter can? Then stay at home, and I will go alone."

"Nay, but it is thou, lady," they exclaimed in one voice. "How canst thou, the daughter of Caiaphas, go out at night to mingle with the crowd? If Caiaphas hear?"

"If Caiaphas hear, if Caiaphas hear, well, Caiaphas will laugh," she answered mischievously.

"Nay, he might laugh with thee, but with us he would be very wroth," said one.

"Well then, Caiaphas shall not know. This very night shall we go. Find out where he preacheth, and leave to me the rest."

Half anxious, yet enjoying the prospect of this escapade, the two girls vanished at her order, while she paced the room, the long, orange-tinted robe, which reached her feet, looking now green, now golden, according as it passed through the sun's rays or through the shadow. Nervously she played with the beads of a girdle of amber she wore round her waist.

"Indeed," she muttered, " 't is not the Nazarene that I would seek; but, if to get sight of Lazarus I must needs find the Nazarene, then go I must."

Proud Rebekah, what hath come to thee, that