Page:The centurion's story (IA centurionsstory00macf).pdf/23

 like a book, so he came down from the judgment seat where he was waiting and himself stood upon the porch beside the Jew. Annas, Caiaphas and the other jangling rabbis or scribes formed a semi-circle in front of the porch on the pavement with the crowd pressing on behind. I put me a man or two back of them with bared spears and yet could scarcely keep the crowd from flattening them against the wall. It was amazing to hear these accusers change their tune when they got before Pilate. All this prating in the houses of Annas and Caiaphas was about laws and doctrines and visions and such like trash. But, lo! they came now charging this man with being an enemy to Cæsar, setting himself up to be a king, refusing tribute and such stuff. Pilate in the meantime had sent Jesus inside while listening to their complaints. Then he strode in to talk to the man himself. I wish you could have seen the contrast. Pilate, tall, lean, chalky white of face with that fishy roving eye that sees naught but the glint of gold and those small, spiked ears of his that hear nothing but the call of spoil and loot, before the Galilean Prophet. Pilate was a full inch taller than he, but the Jew! ye gods! The soul of him stood out in all its imperial majesty. There was a calmness in his poise, a certain possessiveness in his bearing that made him, in my eye, at least, the grander and nobler for the indignities he had just suffered. "Are you king of the Jews?" said Pilate, pompously, and waited for his answer. I smiled behind my shield to see the tables suddenly turned and the prisoner with regal assurance becoming the inquisitor. "Who told you to ask me this?" he said. "Did it occur to you or did somebody sug-