Small wonder I was slow of speech.  For the moment there was but one thought in my brain.  After all the strange play I had seen played out, to have this come upon me!  I did not misunderstand.  The thing was clear.  A great woman was mine if . . . if I betrayed Rome.  For Pilate was governor, his order had gone forth; and his voice was the voice of Rome.

As I have said, it was the woman of her, her sheer womanliness, that betrayed Miriam and me in the end.  Always she had been so clear, so reasonable, so certain of herself and me, so that I had forgotten, or, rather, I there learned once again the eternal lesson learned in all lives, that woman is ever woman . . . that in great decisive moments woman does not reason but feels; that the last sanctuary and innermost pulse to conduct is in woman’s heart and not in woman’s head.

Miriam misunderstood my silence, for her body moved softly within my arms as she added, as if in afterthought: 

“Take two spare horses, Lodbrog.  I shall ride the other . . . with you . . . with you, away over the world, wherever you may ride.”

It was a bribe of kings; it was an act, paltry and contemptible, that was demanded of me in return.  Still I did not speak.  It was not that I was in confusion or in any doubt.  I was merely sad—­greatly and suddenly sad, in that I knew I held in my arms what I would never hold again.

“There is but one man in Jerusalem this day who can save Him,” she urged, “and that man is you, Lodbrog.”

Because I did not immediately reply she shook me, as if in impulse to clarify wits she considered addled.  She shook me till my harness rattled.

“Speak, Lodbrog, speak!” she commanded.  “You are strong and unafraid.  You are all man.  I know you despise the vermin who would destroy Him.  You, you alone can save Him.  You have but to say the word and the thing is done; and I will well love you and always love you for the thing you have done.”

“I am a Roman,” I said slowly, knowing full well that with the words I gave up all hope of her.

“You are a man-slave of Tiberius, a hound of Rome,” she flamed, “but you owe Rome nothing, for you are not a Roman.  You yellow giants of the north are not Romans.”

“The Romans are the elder brothers of us younglings of the north,” I answered.  “Also, I wear the harness and I eat the bread of Rome.”  Gently I added:  “But why all this fuss and fury for a mere man’s life?  All men must die.  Simple and easy it is to die.  To-day, or a hundred years, it little matters.  Sure we are, all of us, of the same event in the end.”

Quick she was, and alive with passion to save as she thrilled within my arms.

“You do not understand, Lodbrog.  This is no mere man.  I tell you this is a man beyond men—­a living God, not of men, but over men.”

I held her closely and knew that I was renouncing all the sweet woman of her as I said: