“What a narrator he is!  Do you hear?”

“Yes, certainly.”

“No, be more attentive.  You women never make good listeners.”

Then they would all quietly disperse to bed, and Jesus would kiss His thanks to John, and stroke kindly the shoulder of the tall Peter.

And without envy, but with a condescending contempt, Judas would witness these caresses.  Of what importance were these tales and kisses and sighs compared with what he, Judas Iscariot, the red-haired, misshapen Judas, begotten among the rocks, could tell them if he chose?

CHAPTER VI

With one hand betraying Jesus, Judas tried hard with the other to frustrate his own plans.  He did not indeed endeavour to dissuade Jesus from the last dangerous journey to Jerusalem, as did the women; he even inclined rather to the side of the relatives of Jesus, and of those amongst His disciples who looked for a victory over Jerusalem as indispensable to the full triumph of His cause.  But he kept continually and obstinately warning them of the danger, and in lively colours depicted the threatening hatred of the Pharisees for Jesus, and their readiness to commit any crime if, either secretly or openly, they might make an end of the Prophet of Galilee.  Each day and every hour he kept talking of this, and there was not one of the believers before whom Judas had not stood with uplifted finger and uttered this serious warning: 

“We must look after Jesus.  We must defend for Jesus, when the hour comes.”

But whether it was the unlimited faith which the disciples had in the miracle-working power of their Master, or the consciousness of their own uprightness, or whether it was simply blindness, the alarming words of Judas were met with a smile, and his continual advice provoked only a grumble.  When Judas procured, somewhere or other, two swords, and brought them, only Peter approved of them, and gave Judas his meed of praise, while the others complained: 

“Are we soldiers that we should be made to gird on swords?  Is Jesus a captain of the host, and not a prophet?”

“But if they attempt to kill Him?”

“They will not dare when they perceive how all the people follow Him.”

“But if they should dare!  What then?”

John replied disdainfully—­

“One would think, Judas, that you were the only one who loved Jesus!”

And eagerly seizing hold of these words, and not in the least offended, Judas began to question impatiently and hotly, with stern insistency: 

“But you love Him, don’t you?”

And there was not one of the believers who came to Jesus whom he did not ask more than once:  “Do you love Him?  Dearly love Him?”

And all answered that they loved Him.

He used often to converse with Thomas, and holding up his dry, hooked forefinger, with its long, dirty nail, in warning, would mysteriously say: