and solemn is the prohibition against doing anything whatsoever
on the Sabbath day.'

'For a religious man, 'tis doing a terrible impiety.'

'Now judge of the Nazarene's conduct,' continued Caiphus: 'he goes to
the pool, and observe, too, that by a cunning villany, and in order to
ruin the physicians, he never receives a penny for cures, for he is
deeply skilled in the healing art.'

'How could you imagine, Seigneur Caiphus, that a man who respects
nothing would respect even the physicians?'

'The Nazarene arrives at the pool, then; he finds there, amongst others,
a man whose foot was dislocated; he replaces it for him.'

'What! on the Sabbath day?'

'He dared!'

'Abomination of desolation!'

'Heal the sick on the Sabbath day!'

'What sacrilege!'

'Yes, seigneurs,' replied the high priest, in a mournful voice; 'he has
committed this sacrilege.'

'Now, if the young man had not healed the sufferer,' said Aurelia to
Jane, smiling, 'I could understand their rage.'

'Such an impiety deserves the worst punishment; for it is impossible to
outrage religion more abominably!'

'And do not imagine,' continued Caiphus, 'that the Nazarene dissembles
the sacrileges or blushes at them; far from it; he blasphemes to that
degree as to say that he laughs at the Sabbath, and that those who
observe it are hypocrites.'

A general murmur of indignation acknowledged the words of the high
priest, so abominable did the impiety of the Nazarene appear to the
guests of Pontius Pilate; but the latter, emptying cup after cup,
appeared to trouble himself no further as to what was being said around
him.

'No, Seigneur Caiphus,' said the banker Jonas, with an air of amazement;
'if it were not you who affirmed such enormities, I should hesitate to
believe them.'

'I speak to the purpose, for I had the happy idea, I think, of bribing
some very artful fellows who feign to be the partizans of this Nazarene;
they therefore make him speak; he yields without suspicion, converses
frankly with our men, and then these come immediately and report all to
us.'

''Twas a most excellent idea of yours, Seigneur Caiphus,' said Jonas the
banker: 'honor to you!'

'It is, therefore, owing to these emissaries,' continued the high
priest, 'that I was informed that the day before yesterday this Nazarene
pronounced inflammatory words capable of inducing the slaves to cut the
throats of their masters.'

'What a wretch!'

'But what does he want?'