"Ha," cried Nathanael, with a laugh of scorn, "now we know thee. Already for a long time hast thou been a secret follower of this Galilean! Now, thou hast shown thyself in thy true colors!" Aged Annas, without leaving his seat, remarked: "So, then, we have in our very midst traitors to our holy law, and even here has the deceiver cast his net." "What do ye here, apostates?" cried Caiaphas. "Be off to your prophet, to see him once more, before the hour strikes when he must die, for that is irrevocably determined." "Yes," cried all the priests. "Yes! die he must; that is our resolve." Then said Nicodemus, "I curse this resolution; I will neither have part nor lot in this shameful condemnation." "And I also," said Joseph of Arimathea, "will quit this place where the innocent are condemned to death. By God, I swear that my hands are clean!" Gathering their robes together, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea walked slowly out of the Sanhedrin. Then said Josue, "At last we are rid of these traitors. Now we can speak out freely." Caiaphas, however, profiting by the protests of Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, said to the assembly: "It will certainly be necessary that we should sit formally in judgment upon this man, to try him and to bring forth witnesses against him, otherwise the people will believe that we have only persecuted him from envy and hatred." Then said one Jacob, "Two witnesses at least the law requires," and Samuel answered: "These shall not be lacking; I will provide them myself." Then said Dariabbas, "Our decision stands firm, but in order not to offend the weak it would be well to observe the usual forms of justice." "And," added Ezekiel complacently, "should these forms not suffice the strength of our will we must supply what is lacking." And a rabbi said, "A little more or less guilty matters little, since once for all the public weal demands that he should be removed." Then Caiaphas said, "In securing the execution of our sentences it would be safest if we could so contrive that the sentence of death should be pronounced by the governor; then we should be clear of all responsibility." "We can try," said Nathanael. "If it miscarries, it is still always open to us to have our sentence carried out by our trusty friends in the commotion of a great tumult, without ourselves being openly responsible for anything." "And then," said the rabbi, "if the worst come we should have him in our hands, and in the silence of a dungeon it will not be difficult to find a more sure hand to deliver the Sanhedrin from its enemy." Then Caiaphas arose and said, "Circumstances will teach us what should be done. Now let us break up. But hold yourselves ready at any hour of the night to be called together. There is no time to be lost. Our resolution is, he must die." And all the members of the high council cried tumultuously: "Let him die! Let him die! The enemy of our holy land!" CHAPTER IV. BETRAYED BY A KISS.