a fourth side might have been a steep decline began.

Within the square three crosses lay; before them the prisoners stood,
stripped of their clothing now, and naked.

The Sanhedrim was grouped about that side of the square which leaned to
the south, the horned bonnet of Caiaphas towering its lacework above the
others. To the wide and cruel corners of his mouth had come the calm of a
cheetah devouring its prey. At the outer angle, to the right, the standard
of the empire swayed; and from an oak two vultures soared with a scream
into the air, their eyes fixed on the vision of bare white flesh.

Through the ranks an elder passed. In his hand was a gourd, which he
offered to one of the thieves.

"Drink of it, Dysmas," he invited. "In it grains of frankincense have been
dissolved."

To the rear Annas nodded his approval. His lean, lank jaws parted. "Give
strong drink," he announced, authoritatively; "give strong and heady drink
to those about to die, and wine to those that sorrow."

Dysmas drank abundantly of the soporific, and held the gourd to his
comrade.

"Take it, Stegas."

As the second thief raised it to his lips, with a motion of arm and knee
an executioner caught Dysmas beneath the chin, behind the leg, and the
thief lay on a cross. In a second his wrists were bound, his feet as well.
There was the blow of a hammer on a nail, a spurt of blood from the open
hand; another blow, another spurt; and the cross, upraised, settled in a
cavity already prepared, a beam behind it for support.

Stegas, his thirst slaked, fell as Dysmas had, and the elder caught the
gourd and offered it to the Christ. If he had been tempted in the desert,
as rumor alleged, the temptation could have been as nothing in comparison
to the enticements of that cup. It held relief from thought, from the
acutest pain that flesh can know, from life, from death.

He waved it aside. The executioner started with surprise; but he had his
duty to perform, and, recovering himself, he caught the Christ, and in a
moment he too was down, his hands transfixed, the cross upraised. The
blood dripped leisurely on the sand beneath. Across his features a shadow
passed and vanished. His lips moved.

"Father," he murmured, "forgive them; they know not what they do."

Calcol gave an order. Over the heads of Dysmas and of Stegas the sanis
were affixed, wooden tablets smeared with gypsum, bearing the name of the
crucified and with it the offence. They were si