The Silver Cross or The Carpenter of Nazareth Part 15

'If I have spoken evil show me the evil I have done; but if I have spoken well, why strikest thou me?'

These words and his angelic sweetness did not disarm the persecutors of the young man; coa.r.s.e laughter again burst from the hall and the insults recommenced on all sides.

'Oh! the Nazarene, the man of peace, the enemy of war, does not belie himself; he is a coward and allows himself to be struck in the face.'

'Call your disciples, then; let them come and avenge you if you have not the courage.'

'His disciples,' said one of the soldiers who had arrested Jesus. 'His disciples! ah! if you had but seen them! At sight of our lances and our torches the vagabonds fled like a flight of owls!'

'They were glad enough to escape the tyranny of the Nazarene, who kept them near him by magic!'

'As a proof that they hate and despise him, not one dared accompany him hither.'

'Oh!' thought Genevieve, 'how Jesus must suffer from this base ingrat.i.tude of his friends! It must be more cruel than the outrages of which he is the object.' And turning her head towards the street door, she saw at a distance Peter, still seated on a bench, his face hidden in his hands and not having even the courage to a.s.sist and defend his kind master before this tribunal of blood. The tumult produced by the violence of the officer being somewhat appeased, one of the emissaries continued in a loud voice:

'I swear, lastly, that this man has horribly blasphemed by saying that he is Christ, the son of G.o.d!'

Then Caiphus, addressing Jesus, said to him in a tone still more menacing: 'You reply nothing to what these persons say of you?'

But the young man only shrugged his shoulders and still continued silent. This irritated Caiphus, he rose from his seat and exclaimed, pointing with his finger to the son of Mary: 'On the part of the living G.o.d, I order you to tell us if you are the Christ, the son of G.o.d.'

'You have said it, I am,' replied the young man smiling.

Genevieve had heard Jesus say, that like all men, his brothers, he was a son of G.o.d; just as the Druids teach that all men are sons of the same G.o.d. What then was the surprise of the slave, when she saw the high priest, when Jesus had replied that he was the son of G.o.d, rise up and tear his robe with all the appearance of horror and alarm, exclaiming, addressing the members of the tribunal:

'He has blasphemed; what need have we of more witnesses? You, yourselves, have heard him blaspheme, how do you judge him?'

'He deserves death!'

Such was the reply of all the judges of this court of inquiry. But the voices of Doctor Baruch and of the banker Jonas rose above every other; they cried out, striking with their fist the marble table of the tribunal:

'Death for the Nazarene! He has deserved death!'

'Yes! yes!' cried all the soldiers and the servants of the high priest, 'he has deserved death!'

'To death with the cursed blasphemer!'

'Conduct this criminal instantly before the Seigneur Pontius Pilate, Governor of Judea, for the Emperor Tiberius,' said Caiphus to the soldiers; 'he alone can give orders to put the condemned to death.'

At these words of the high priest they dragged Jesus from the house of Caiphus to take him before Pontius Pilate. Genevieve, confounded with the servants, followed the soldiers. On pa.s.sing the door she saw Peter, the cowardly disciple of Jesus (the least cowardly of all, however, she thought, since alone, he had at least followed him there), she saw Peter turn away his eyes, when Jesus seeking for a look from his disciple, pa.s.sed before him, conducted by the soldiers. One of the female servants recognising Peter said to him:

'You, too, were with Jesus the Galilean?'

But Peter, reddening and casting down his eyes, replied:

'I know not what you say.'

Another servant, hearing Peter's reply, said, pointing him out to the bystanders:

'I tell you that this one was also with Jesus of Nazareth!'

'I swear,' exclaimed Peter, 'I swear that I know not Jesus of Nazareth!'

Genevieve's heart heaved with indignation and disgust. This Peter, by a base weakness, or for fear of sharing the fate of his master, denying him twice and perjuring himself, for this indignity was in her eyes the worst of men: more than ever she pitied Mary's son for having been betrayed, given up, abandoned, and denied by those whom he so much loved.

She thus explained to herself the painful sadness she had remarked on his features. A great mind like this could not fear death, but despair at the ingrat.i.tude of those whom he thought his dearest friends.

The slave quitted the house of the high priest, where Peter the renegade remained, and soon rejoined the soldiers who were leading away Jesus.

The day began to break, several mendicants and vagabonds who had slept on the benches placed on each side of the door of the houses, awoke at the noise of the soldiers who were leading away Jesus. Genevieve hoped for a moment that these poor people who followed him everywhere, would call him their friend, whose misfortunes he so kindly pitied, would apprise their companions and a.s.semble them to release Jesus; consequently she said to one of these men:

'Know you not that these soldiers are leading away the young man of Nazareth, the friend of the poor and afflicted? They would kill him; hasten to defend him; release him; raise the people. These soldiers of Jerusalem will fly perhaps, but the soldiers of Pontius Pilate are tougher; they have good lances, thick cuira.s.ses, and well tempered swords.'

'What could we attempt?'

'Why you can rise in a ma.s.s; you can arm yourselves with stones, with sticks!' exclaimed Genevieve, 'and at least you can die to avenge him who has consecrated his life to your cause!'

The beggar shook his head and replied whilst one of his companions approached him:

'Wretched as life may be, we cling to it, and 'tis running to meet death if we stake our rags against the cuira.s.ses of the Roman soldiers.'

'And then,' said another vagabond, 'if Jesus of Nazareth is a Messiah, as so many others have been before him, and so many others will be after him, 'tis a misfortune if they kill him; but Messiahs are never wanting in Israel.'

'And if they put him to death!' said Genevieve, 'it is because he has loved you; it is because he pitied your wretchedness; it is because he has shamed the rich for their hypocrisy and their hardness of heart towards those who suffer!'

'It is true; he constantly predicted for us the kingdom of G.o.d on earth,' replied the vagabond again, reclining on his bench, as also his companion, to warm themselves by the rays of the morning sun; 'yet these fine days he promised us do not arrive, and we are just as poor to-day as we were yesterday.'

'Eh! and what tells you that these fine days, promised by him, will not arrive to-morrow?' continued Genevieve; 'does not the harvest require time to take root, to grow, and to ripen? Poor, blind and impatient that you are, recollect that to leave him to die, whom you call your friend, before he has fertilized the good seeds he has sown in so many hearts, is to trample under foot, is to destroy whilst yet only gra.s.s, a harvest perhaps magnificent.'

The two vagabonds remained silent, shaking their heads, and Genevieve left them, saying to herself with profound grief:

'Shall I encounter, then, everywhere nothing but ingrat.i.tude, forgetfulness, treason and cowardice? Oh! it is not the body of Jesus that will be crucified, it will be his heart.'

The slave hastened to join the soldiers who were approaching the house of Pontius Pilate.--At the moment she doubled her pace, she remarked a sort of tumult amongst the Jerusalem militia, which suddenly stopped.

She mounted on a bench and saw Banaias alone at the entrance of a narrow arcade which the soldiers had to cross to reach the governor's house, audaciously barring the pa.s.sage, brandis.h.i.+ng his long stick terminated by a k.n.o.b of iron.

'Ah! this one at least does not abandon him he calls his friend!'

thought Genevieve.

'By the shoulders of Samson!' cried Banaias in his loud voice, 'if you do not instantly set our friend at liberty, militia of Beelzebub! I'll beat you as dry as the flail beats the wheat on the barn floor! Ah! if I had but time to collect a band of companions as resolute as myself to defend our friend of Nazareth, 'tis an order I would give you instead of a simple prayer, and this simple prayer I repeat: set our friend at liberty, or else by the jawbone used by Samson, I will destroy you all like he destroyed the Philistines!'

'Do you hear the wretch! he calls this audacious menace a prayer!'

exclaimed the officer commanding the militia, who prudently kept himself in the middle of his troop; 'run your lances through the miserable; strike him with your swords if he does not make way for you!'

The Jerusalem militia was not a very valiant troop, for they had hesitated before arresting Jesus, who advanced towards them, alone and disarmed: so that, despite the orders of their chief, they remained a moment undecided before the menacing att.i.tude of Banaias.

In vain did Jesus, whose firm and gentle voice was heard by Genevieve, endeavor to appease his defender, and entreat him to retire. Banaias resumed in a threatening tone, thus replying to the supplications of the young Nazarene:

'Do not trouble yourself about me, friend; you are a man of peace and quietness. I am a man of violence and battle, when the feeble are to be protected. Let me alone. I will stop these wicked soldiers here, until the noise of the tumult has apprised and brought my companions; and then, by the five hundred concubines of Solomon, who danced before him, you shall see these devils of the militia dance to the tune of our k.n.o.bbed sticks, keeping time on their helmets and cuira.s.ses.'