Page:Lazarus, a tale of the world's great miracle.djvu/349

Rh "What is Truth?" repeated Claudia scornfully, her eyes flashing with the wrath that stirred her. "What is Truth is this: thou art a coward, a mean, shrinking coward. The Romans were called ever brave, but in all Judæa there is no such coward as thou. For fear of the multitude thou hast struck at God, if He be indeed the Son of God!"

Surely his retribution was coming swiftly, dealt by the hand that could wound the most; for all this man's great love was centred in, and wisely so, his wife.

"Oh, Claudia, Claudia, blame me not," he said again, in a voice beseeching as a little child's. "He blamed me not, for when I said, 'Speakest Thou not unto me? knowest Thou not that I have power to crucify Thee, and have power to release Thee?' He answered me, 'Thou wouldst have no power at all against Me, except it were given Thee from above: therefore he that delivered Me unto thee hath the greater sin.' Then, when I heard those words, I tried all I could to save Him; believe me, Claudia, I brought Him forth as a king; I cried, 'Will ye crucify your King?' And, when they derided me, I said again, 'Behold your King!' Yet they cried only the more, 'We have no King but Cæsar. Crucify Him! Crucify Him!' Then I sent Him to Herod, but he, too, would not condemn Him; and methinks the people would have listened to Herod, but that hell-hound Caiaphas, that suave-mouthed, leprous-souled High Priest, had paid many of the Jews to cry out 'Crucify!' and, for fear of an uproar, and lest the multitude should tear the Nazarene to pieces, I did let them have Him."