Man is after all the Christ"—here he broke off into a horrible, unmirthful laugh—"if Caiaphas is wrong then let His blood be upon me and upon my house, and let me be damned for ever and ever. Yes, I would barter even my soul, rather than let that proud Claudia and that self-sufficient, prating Roman fool, the Procurator, triumph over me. I have borne enough; the Nazarene shall die, and that speedily."
And, even ere these words had passed his lips, a flash of summer lightning illumed the room, and, to the overwrought brain of Caiaphas, it seemed as if, within that light, the figure of the Nazarene, in dazzling white, appeared to him; and the sad, speaking eyes were turned on him reproachfully, and a voice, whose music haunted him till his dying day, in gentle accents murmured: "Why go ye about to kill Me?"
