When Jesus was led away, Peter, who had hidden himself behind the trees, came out and followed his Master at a distance.  Noticing another man in front of him, who walked silently, he thought that it was John, and he called him softly: 

“John, is that you?”

“And is that you, Peter?” answered the other, pausing, and by the voice Peter recognised the traitor.  “Peter, why did you not run away together with the others?”

Peter stopped and said with contempt: 

“Leave me, Satan!”

Judas began to laugh, and paying no further attention to Peter, he advanced where the torches were flashing dimly and where the clanking of the weapons mingled with the footsteps.  Peter followed him cautiously, and thus they entered the court of the high priest almost simultaneously and mingled in the crowd of the priests who were warming themselves at the bonfires.  Judas warmed his bony hands morosely at the bonfire and heard Peter saying loudly somewhere behind him: 

“No, I do not know Him.”

But it was evident that they were insisting there that he was one of the disciples of Jesus, for Peter repeated still louder:  “But I do not understand what you are saying.”

Without turning around, and smiling involuntarily, Judas shook his head affirmatively and muttered: 

“That’s right, Peter!  Do not give up the place near Jesus to any one.”

And he did not see the frightened Peter walk away from the courtyard.  And from that night until the very death of Jesus, Judas did not see a single one of the disciples of Jesus near Him; and amid all that multitude there were only two, inseparable until death, strangely bound together by sufferings—­He who had been betrayed to abuse and torture and he who had betrayed Him.  Like brothers, they both, the Betrayed and the betrayer, drank out of the same cup of sufferings, and the fiery liquid burned equally the pure and the impure lips.

Gazing fixedly at the wood-fire, which imparted a feeling of warmth to his eyes, stretching out his long, shaking hands to the flame, his hands and feet forming a confused outline in the trembling light and shade, Iscariot kept mumbling in hoarse complaint: 

“How cold!  My God, how cold it is!”

So, when the fishermen go away at night leaving an expiring fire of drift-wood upon the shore, from the dark depth of the sea might something creep forth, crawl up towards the fire, look at it with wild intentness, and dragging all its limbs up to it, mutter in hoarse complaint: 

“How cold!  My God, how cold it is!”

Suddenly Judas heard behind him a burst of loud voices, the cries and laughter of the soldiers full of the usual sleepy, greedy malice; and lashes, short frequent strokes upon a living body.  He turned round, a momentary anguish running through his whole frame—­his very bones.  They were scourging Jesus.

Has it come to that?