In _Scene 19_ we hear him issuing his cruel order for the killing of the children. But when the foul deed is done there await the murderer two kings whom he cannot slay, Death and the Devil. A banquet is in full swing, Herod's officers are about him, the customary rant and bombast is on his lips when those two steal in. 'While the trumpets are sounding, Death slays Herod and his two soldiers suddenly, and the Devil receives them'--so runs the terse Latin stage-direction. Of the Devil we have more than enough in _Scene 22_, for it opens with an infernal council, Sathanas, Belyalle, and Belsabub debating the best means of testing the divinity of Jesus and of thereby making sure whether or no another lord has been placed over them. The plan decided upon is the Temptation. But great is Satan's downfall. 'Out, out, harrow! alas! alas!' is the cry (one that had become very familiar to his audience) as he hastens back to Hell, leaving the Heavenly Hero crowned with glorious victory. This is one of several scenes chosen by the author for the glorifying of his central character. Perhaps they culminate in 'The Entry into Jerusalem'. The scenes that now succeed each other, marking each stage of the sorrowful descent to death, are notable chiefly for that quality to which attention has already been drawn, namely, the dignity which surrounds the character of the Hero. This dignity is not accidental. On the contrary it would have been easy to fall into the error of exciting so much compassion that the sufferer became a pitiably crushed victim of misfortune. With much skill the writer places his most pathetic lines in the mouths of the two Maries, diverts upon them the sharpest edge of our pity, and never for a moment allows Jesus to appear overwhelmed. When a Jew, in 'The Trial of Christ', speaks in terms of low insolence, addressing him as 'thou, fela (_fellow_)' and striking him on the cheek, Jesus replies: Yf I have seyd amys, Thereof wytnesse thou mayst bere; And yf I have seyd but weyl in this, Tho dost amys me to dere[13]. Again, in answer to Cayphas's outrageous scream of fury, 'Spek man, spek! spek, thou fop!... I charge the and conjure, be the sonne and the mone, that thou telle us and (_if_) thou be Goddys sone!', Jesus says calmly, 'Goddys sone I am, I sey not nay to the!' Still later in the same scene, the silence of Jesus before Herod (sustained through forty lines or more of urging and vile abuse, besides cruel beatings) lifts Him into infinite superiority over the blustering, bullying judge and his wretched instruments. It is true that the Bible gives the facts, but with the freedom allowed to the dramatist the excellence of the original might have been so easily spoilt.