Page:Philochristus, Abbott, 1878.djvu/374

366 but still as one in a dream, scarce knowing what I did, I bent my way towards the gate of the valley of Kidron. Here I was musing how, but yesterday, in this very place, I had walked by the side of Jesus, even at his right hand, and how the touch of his arm had held me up in my stumbling; when behold, I started back as if I had seen a spirit. For the voice of one close to me in the twilight whispered with an hissing sound, "He is not dead." I looked, and behold, Judas stood before me. His face was pale and his eyes glared, and passion so wrought his features that they moved and quivered, as if against his will, like unto the features of one possessed by Satan. When I drew back from him, at first he would have stayed me; but seeing that I loathed him, he also drew back and said, "Nay, be not afraid, I cannot betray another. But he is not dead. Hast thou not seen him?" I marvelled at him, but said nothing, only shaking my head. Then Judas replied, "Think not that I have slain him; he liveth: he hunteth me to death; these three times have I seen him. I have not slain him. Why then doth he yet hunt me? But thou, thou didst love him, be thou at peace with me." Saying these words, he came forward again to have taken me by the hand; but I could not. Then he turned away and laughed such a laugh as I pray God I may never hear again. But as he departed, he cried aloud, "Thou rememberest his words, 'It were better for him that he had never been born:' verily he was a prophet." Then he laughed again, even such another laugh as before; and he cursed the God that had made him. With that he went his way, and I saw him no more. For a while I stood where I was, as if in a trance, almost expecting that the words of Judus should prove true, and that Jesus should come forth to me out of the air around me. Then I passed through the gate of Kidron; and,