"Oh, Master, how have I fallen! I have denied thee, how can it be possible? Three times denied thee! Oh, thou knowest, Lord, I was resolved to follow thee to death." Meanwhile Judas hears the story of what has happened. He is at once filled with agony and remorse, for he had not expected it. He was sure that the great power of the Master would bring him through safely at last. In helpless agony, he rushes before the Council and makes an ineffective protest. "No peace for me forevermore; no peace for you," he says. "The blood of the innocent cries aloud for justice." He is repulsed with cold indifference. "Will it or not," says the High Priest, "he must die, and it would be well for thee to look out for thyself." In fury he cries out, "If he dies, then am I a traitor. May ten thousand devils tear me in pieces! Here, ye bloodhounds, take back your curse!" And flinging the blood-money at the feet of the priests, he flies from their presence, pursued by the specter of his crime. The next scene shows us the field of blood--a wind-swept desert, with one forlorn tree in the foreground. We see the wretched Judas before the tree. He tears off his girdle, "a snake," he calls it, and places it about his neck, snapping off a branch of the tree in his haste to fasten it. "Here, accursed life, I end thee; let the most miserable of all fruit hang upon this tree." In the action we feel that Judas is not so much wicked as weak. He has little faith and little imagination, and his folly of avarice hurries him into betrayal. Those who see the play feel as the actors feel, that Christ knows the weakness of man. He would have forgiven Judas, just as he forgave Peter. In the early morning Christ is brought before Pontius Pilate. The Roman governor, admirably represented by Thomas Rendl, appears in the balcony and talks down to Caiaphas, who sends up his accusations from the street below. His clear sense of justice makes Pilate at first more than a match for the conspirators. With magnificent scorn he tells Caiaphas that he is "astounded at his sudden zeal for Caesar." Of Christ he says: "He seems to me a wise man--so wise that these dark men cannot bear the light from his wisdom." Learning that Jesus is from Galilee, he throws the whole matter into the hands of Herod, the governor of that province. The words of Pilate are very finely spoken. "We marvel," says one writer, "how the peasant Rendl learned to bear himself so nobly or to utter the famous question, 'What is truth?' with a certain dreamy inward expression and tone, as though outward circumstances had for the instant vanished from his mind, and he were alone with his own soul and the flood of thought raised by the words of Jesus."