" said I. "There were some slaves and wandering men in Rome who
called themselves such. They worshipped, so far as I could gather, some
man who died over here in Judaea. He was put to death, I believe, in the
time of Tiberius."

"That is so," he answered. "It was at the time when Pilate was
procurator--Pontius Pilate, the brother of old Lucius Pilate, who had
Egypt in the time of Augustus. Pilate was of two minds in the matter,
but the mob was as wild and savage as these very men that we have been
contending with. Pilate tried to put them off with a criminal, hoping
that so long as they had blood they would be satisfied. But they chose
the other, and he was not strong enough to withstand them. Ah! it was a
pity--a sad pity!"

"You seem to know a good deal about it," said I.

"I was there," said the man simply, and became silent, while we both
looked down at the huge column of flame from the burning temple. As it
flared up we could see the white tents of the army and all the country
round. There was a low hill just outside the city, and my companion
pointed to it.

"That was where it happened," said he. "I forget the name of the place,
but in those days--it was more than thirty years ago--they put their
criminals to death there. But He was no criminal. It is always His eyes
that I think of--the look in His eyes."

"What about the eyes, then?"

"They have haunted me ever since. I see them now. All the sorrow of
earth seemed mirrored in them. Sad, sad, and yet such a deep, tender
pity! One would have said that it was He who needed pity had you seen
His poor battered, disfigured face. But He had no thought for
Himself--it was the great world pity that looked out of His gentle eyes.
There was a noble maniple of the legion there, and not a man among them
who did not wish to charge the howling crowd who were dragging such a
man to His death."

"What were you doing there?"

"I was Junior Centurion, with the gold vine-rod fresh on my shoulders. I
was on duty on the hill, and never had a job that I liked less. But
discipline has to be observed, and Pilate had given the order. But I
thought at the time--and I was not the only one--that this man's name
and work would not be forgotten, and that there would be a curse on the
place that had done such a deed. There was an old woman there, His
mother, with her grey hair down her back. I remember how she shrieked
when one of our fellows with his lance put Him out of his pain. A