“One silver piece and honour!”

“Let us make it two silver pieces without honour,” haggled the little old man.  “A steed for princes, I tell you.  In the whole of Judaea you won’t find such another beauty!  It is of noble descent, you must know.”

“We can dispense with that honour,” said James, “if only it does not stumble.”

Then the old man related how in the year of Herod’s massacre of the innocents—­“a little over thirty years ago, I think—­you must know that the Infant Messiah lay in a stable at Bethlehem with the ox and the ass.  The child rode away into foreign lands, as far as Egypt, they say, on that very ass.  And this ass is descended from that one.”

“If that’s so,” said James brightly, “it’s a marvellous coincidence!” And he whispered softly in the old man’s ear:  “The man who will enter Jerusalem to-day on that ass is the Messiah who was born in the stable.”

“Is it Jesus of Nazareth?” asked the old man.  “I will hire the animal to Him for half a silver piece.  In return I shall implore Him to heal my wife, who has been rheumatic for years.”

So they made their compact, and James led the ass up the mountain where they were all sitting together, unable to gaze long enough at Jerusalem.  Only Jesus was wrapt in thought and looked gloomily at the shining town.

“Oh, Jerusalem!” He said softly to Himself.  “If only thou wouldst heed this hour.  If thou wouldst recognise wherein lies thy salvation.  But thou dost not recognise it, and I foresee the day when cruel enemies will pull down thy walls so that not one stone remains upon another.”

John placed his cloak on the animal, and Jesus mounted it.  He rode down to the valley followed by His disciples.

And then an extraordinary thing happened.  When they reached the valley of Kedron where the roads cross, people hurried up shouting:  “The King is coming!  The Son of David is coming!” Soon others ran out of the farms and the gardens, and kept alongside them at the edge of the road, shouting:  “It is the Messiah!  God be praised.  He has come!”

No one knew who had spread the news of His arrival, or who first shouted the word Messiah.  Perhaps it was Judas.  It caught on like wildfire, awaking cries of acclamation everywhere.  When Jesus rode up to the town, the crowd was so great that the ass could only pace slowly along, and after He had passed the town gate the streets and squares could scarcely contain the people.  The whole of Jerusalem had suddenly become aware that the Prophet of Nazareth had come!  Strangers from the provinces, who had already seen and heard Him in other places, pressed forward.  Now that He entered the metropolis with head erect and the cry of the Messiah filling the air, people who had scorned the poor fugitive were proud of Him and boasted of meetings with Him, of His acquaintance.  Hands were stretched out to Him.  Many cast their garments on the ground for the ass