"Most holy and reverend high priest," replied Chelluh, "the Nazarene said in my hearing, and in the hearing of this friend of mine--an honest craftsman, as thou seest--'I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days!'"
The high priest arose in his place and fixed his eyes upon the prisoner. "Answerest thou nothing?" he hissed between set teeth. "What is the meaning of this saying which these reputable witnesses bring against thee?"
Jesus seemed not to have heard the question. His inscrutable eyes were bent upon the ground; upon his face shone a faint, mysterious light. The high priest bent forward and stared at him, unrelentingly. "_I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God!_" he cried in a terrible voice.
The Man of Nazareth lifted his meek head at that word. "I am," he said slowly--distinctly. "And ye shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming with the clouds of heaven."
"He hath spoken blasphemy!" exclaimed the high priest, rending his garments with a gesture of outraged holiness. "What further need have we of witnesses? Ye have heard the blasphemy: what think ye?"
"Death--death! He is guilty!" came the deep-throated answer of the priests.
Cries of triumph, dreadful laughter, the sound of buffeting palms burst forth from judges and witnesses alike. Some one was tying a handkerchief over the face of the prisoner with the mocking words, "Behold the Prophet!"
"Prophesy unto us, thou Christ. Who is he that smote thee?" yelled the savage voice of the beggar who had received his sight; and he smote his blinded Saviour with open palms twice--thrice--many times.
A suffocating mist rolled blood-red before the eyes of Peter. "If he were the Messiah," he groaned, "this could not be. The man hath mocked and deceived us from the beginning!"
Somewhere, not far away, sounded the cheerful crowing of a cock. "I will go back to Galilee," he muttered. But his leaden feet carried him no farther from the awful scene than the porch. Here he loitered, listening with a frightful, strained attention to the sounds of ribaldry and laughter that came out to him through the half-open doors. "I will go," he said aloud. "I must go. It is already day."