.' He pressed his hand to his heart and gazed imploringly at Azazello. 'All right. Off you go home! ' said Azazello and Varenukha melted away. 'Now all of you leave me alone with these two,' ordered Woland, pointing to the master and Margarita. Woland's command was obeyed instantly. After a silence he said to the master : 'So you're going back to your basement near the Arbat. How will you be able to write now? Where are your dreams, your inspiration? ' 'I have no more dreams and my inspiration is dead,' replied the master, ' nobody interests me any longer except her '--he laid his hand again on Margarita's head--' I'm finished. My only wish is to return to that basement.' 'And what about your novel? What about Pilate? ' 'I hate that novel,' replied the master. ' I have been through too much because of it.' 'Please,' begged Margarita piteously, ' don't talk like that. Whv are you torturing me? You know I've put my whole life into your work,' and she added, turning to Woland : ' Don't listen to him, messire, he has suffered too much.' 'But won't you need to re-write some of it? ' asked Woland. ' Or if you've exhausted your Procurator, why not write about somebody else--that Aloysius, for instance . . .' The master smiled. 'Lapshennikova would never print it and in any case that doesn't interest me.' 'How will you earn your living, then? Won't you mind being poor? ' 'Not a bit,' said the master, drawing Margarita to him. Embracing her round the shoulders he added: ' She'll leave me when she comes to her senses.' 'I doubt it,' said Woland, teeth clenched. He went on : 'So the creator of Pontius Pilate proposes to go and starve in a basement? ' Margarita unlinked her arms from the master's and said passionately : 'I've done all I can. I whispered to him the most tempting thing of all. And he refused.' 'I know what you whispered to him,' said Woland, ' but that is not what tempts him most. Believe me,' he turned with a smile to the master, ' your novel has some more surprises in store for you.' 'What a grim prospect,' answered the master. 'No, it is not grim at all,' said Woland. ' Nothing terrible will come of it, I assure you. Well now, Margarita Nikolayevna, everything is arranged. Have you any further claims on me?' 'How can I, messire? ' 'Then take this as a souvenir,' said Woland and took a small golden, diamond-studded horseshoe from under a cushion. 'No--I couldn't take it. Haven't you done enough for me? ' ' Are you arguing with me? ' asked Woland, smiling. As Margarita had no pocket in her gown she wrapped the horseshoe in a napkin and knotted it. Then something seemed to worry her. She looked out of the window at the moon and said : 'One thing I don't understand--it still seems to be midnight. Shouldn't it be morning? ' 'It's pleasant to stop the clock on a festive night such as this,' replied Woland. ' And now--good luck!' Margarita stretched both hands to Woland in entreaty, but found she could come no nearer to him. 'Goodbye! Goodbye!' 'Au revoir,' said Woland. Margarita in her black cloak and the master in his hospital dressing-gown walked out into the corridor of Berlioz's flat, where the light was burning and Woland's retinue was waiting for them. As they passed along the corridor Hella, helped by the cat, carried the suitcase with the novel and Margarita Nikolayev-na's few belongings. At the door of the flat Koroviev bowed and vanished, while the others escorted them down the staircase. It was empty. As they passed the third floor landing a faint bump was heard, but no one paid it any attention. At the front door of staircase 6 Azazello blew into the air and as they entered the dark courtyard they saw a man in boots and peaked cap sound asleep on the doorstep and a large, black car standing by the entrance with dimmed lights. Barely visible in the driver's seat was the outline of a crow. Margarita was just about to sit down when she gave a stifled cry of despair: 'Oh God, I've lost the horseshoe.' 'Get into the car,' said Azazello, ' and wait for me. I'll be back in a moment as soon as I've looked into this.' He walked back through the doorway. What had happened was this: shortly before Margarita, the master and their escort had left No. 50, a shrivelled woman carrying a bag and a tin can had emerged from No. 48, the flat immediately below. It was Anna--the same Anna who the previous Wednesday had spilt the sunflower-seed oil near the turnstile with such disastrous consequences for Berlioz. Nobody knew and no one probably ever will know what this woman was doing in Moscow or what she lived on. She was to be seen every day either with her tin can or her bag or both, sometimes at the oil-shop, sometimes at the market, sometimes outside the block of flats or on the staircase, but mostly in the kitchen of flat No. 48, where she lived. She was notorious for being a harbinger of disaster wherever she went and she was nicknamed ' Anna the Plague '. Anna the Plague usually got up very early in the morning, but this morning something roused her long before dawn, soon after midnight. Her key turned in the door, her nose poked through and was followed by Anna herself, who slammed the door behind her. She was just about to set off on some errand when the door banged on the upstairs landing, a man came bounding downstairs, crashed into Anna and knocked her sideways so hard that she hit the back of her head against the wall. 'Where the hell do you think you're going like that--in your underpants? ' whined Anna, rubbing the back of her head. The man, who was wearing underclothes and a cap and carrying a suitcase, answered in a sleepy voice with his eyes closed: 'Bath . . . whitewash . . . cost me a fortune . . .' and bursting into tears he bellowed : ' I've been kicked out! ' Then he dashed off--not downstairs but upstairs again to where the windowpane had been broken by Poplavsky's foot, and through it he glided feet first out into the courtyard. Forgetting about her aching head, Anna gasped and rushed up to the broken window. She lay flat on the landing floor and stuck her head out in the courtyard, expecting to see the mortal remains of the man with the suitcase lit up by the courtyard lamp. But there was absolutely nothing to be seen on the courtyard pavement. As far as Anna could tell, this weird sleepwalker had flown out of the house like a bird, leaving not a trace. She crossed herself and thought: ' It's that No. 50! No wonder people say it's haunted . . .' The thought had hardly crossed her mind before the door upstairs slammed again and someone else came running down. Anna pressed herself to the wall and saw a respectable looking gentleman with a little beard and, so it seemed to her, a slightly piggish face, who slipped past her and like the first man left the building through the window, also without hitting the ground below. Anna had long since forgotten her original reason for coming out, and stayed on the staircase, crossing herself, moaning and talking to herself. After a short while a third man, with no beard but with a round clean-shaven face and wearing a shirt, emerged and shot through the window in turn. To give Anna her due she was of an enquiring turn of mind and she decided to wait and see if there were to be any further marvels. The upstairs door opened again and a whole crowd started coming downstairs, this time not running but walking like ordinary people. Anna ran down from the window back to her own front door, quickly opened it, hid behind it and kept her eye, wild with curiosity, fixed to the crack which she left open. An odd sick-looking man, pale with a stubbly beard, in a black cap and dressing-gown, was walking unsteadily downstairs, carefully helped by a lady wearing what looked to Anna in the gloom like a black cassock. The lady was wearing some transparent slippers, obviously foreign, but so torn and shredded that she was almost barefoot. It was indecent--bedroom slippers and quite obviously naked except for a black gown billowing out as she walked! ' That No. 50!' Anna's mind was already savouring the story she was going to tell the neighbours tomorrow. After this lady came a naked girl carrying a suitcase and helped by an enormous black cat. Rubbing her eyes, Anna could barely help bursting into a shriek of pure amazement. Last in the procession was a short, limping foreigner with a wall eye, no jacket, a white evening-dress waistcoat and a bow tie. Just as the whole party had filed downstairs past Anna's door, something fell on to the landing with a gentle thump. When the sound of footsteps had died away, Anna wriggled out of her doorway like a snake, put down her tin can, dropped on to her stomach and started groping about on the landing floor. Suddenly she found herself holding something heavy wrapped in a table-napkin. Her eyes started from her head as she untied the napkin and lifted the jewel close to eyes that burned with a wolfish greed. A storm of thoughts whirled round her mind: 'See no sights and tell no tales! Shall I take it to my nephew? Or split it up into pieces? I could ease the stones out and sell them off one at a time. . . .' Anna hid her find in the front of her blouse, picked up her tin can and was just about to abandon her errand and slip back indoors when she was suddenly confronted by the coatless man with the white shirtfront, who whispered to her in a soft voice : 'Give me that horseshoe wrapped in a serviette! ' 'What serviette? What horseshoe? ' said Anna, prevaricating with great skill. ' Never seen a serviette. What's the matter with you--drunk? ' Without another word but with fingers as hard and as cold as the handrail of a bus, the man in the white shirtfront gripped Anna's throat so tightly that he prevented all air from entering her lungs. The tin can fell from her hand. Having stopped Anna from breathing for a while, the jacketless stranger removed his fingers from her neck. Gasping for breath, Anna smiled. 'Oh, you mean the little horseshoe? ' she said. ' Of course! Is it yours? I looked and there it was wrapped in a serviette, I picked it up on purpose in case anybody else might find it and vanish with it! ' With the horseshoe in his possession again, the stranger began bowing and scraping to Anna, shook her by the hand and thanked her warmly in a thick foreign accent: 'I am most deeply grateful to you, madame. This horseshoe is dear to me as a memory. Please allow me to give you two hundred roubles for saving it.' At which he pulled the money from his waistcoat pocket and gave it to Anna, who could only exclaim with a bewildered grin : 'Oh, thank you so much! Merci!' In one leap the generous stranger had jumped down a whole flight of stairs, but before vanishing altogether he shouted up at her, this time without a trace of an accent: 'Next time you find someone else's things, you old witch, hand it in to the police instead of stuffing it down your front! ' Utterly confused by events and by the singing in her ears, Anna could do nothing for a long time but stand on the staircase and croak: ' Mem! Merci! ' until long after the stranger had vanished. Having returned Woland's present to Margarita, Azazello said goodbye to her, enquiring if she was comfortably seated ; Hella gave her a smacking kiss and the cat pressed itself affectionately to her hand. With a wave to the master as he lowered himself awkwardly into his seat and a wave to the crow, the party vanished into thin air, without bothering to return indoors and walk up the staircase. The crow switched on the headlights and drove out of the courtyard past the man asleep at the entrance. Finally the lights of the big black car were lost as they merged into the rows of streetlamps on silent, empty Sadovaya Street. An hour later Margarita was sitting, softly weeping from shock and happiness, in the basement of the little house in one of the sidestreets off the Arbat. In the master's study all was as it had been before that terrible autumn night of the year before. On the table, covered with a velvet cloth, stood a vase of lily-of-the-valley and a shaded lamp. The charred manuscript-book lay in front of her, beside it a pile of undamaged copies. The house was silent. Next door on a divan, covered by his hospital dressing-gown, the master lay in a deep sleep, his regular breathing inaudible from the next room. Drying her tears, Margarita picked up one of the unharmed folios and found the place that she had been reading before she had met Azazello beneath the Kremlin wall. She had no wish to sleep. She smoothed the manuscript tenderly as one strokes a favourite cat and turning it over in her hands she inspected it from every angle, stopping now on the title page, now at the end. A fearful thought passed through her mind that it was nothing more than a piece of wizardry, that the folio might vanish from sight, that she would wake up and find that she was in her bedroom at home and it was time to get up and stoke the boiler. But this was only a last terrible fantasy, the echo of long-borne suffering. Nothing vanished, the all-powerful Woland really was all-powerful and Margarita was able to leaf through the manuscript to her heart's content, till dawn if she wanted to, stare at it, kiss it and re-read the words : 'The mist that came from the Mediterranean sea blotted out the city that Pilate so detested . . .' 27. How the Procurator Tried to Save Judas of Karioth The mist that came from the Mediterranean sea blotted out the city that Pilate so detested. The suspension bridges connecting the temple with the grim fortress of Antonia vanished, the murk descended from the sky and drowned the winged gods above the hippodrome, the crenellated Hasmonaean palace, the bazaars, the caravanserai, the alleyways, the pools . . . Jerusalem, the great city, vanished as though it had never been. The mist devoured everything, frightening every living creature in Jerusalem and its surroundings. The city was engulfed by a strange cloud which had crept over it from the sea towards the end of that day, the fourteenth of the month of Nisan. It had emptied its belly over Mount Golgotha, where the executioners had hurriedly despatched their victims, it had flowed over the temple of Jerusalem, pouring down in smoky cascades from the mound of the temple and invading the Lower City. It had rolled through open windows and driven people indoors from the winding streets. At first it held back its rain and only spat lightning, the flame cleaving through the smoking black vapour, lighting up the great pile of the temple and its glittering, scaly roof. But the flash passed in a moment and the temple was plunged again into an abyss of darkness. Several times it loomed through the murk to vanish again and each time its disappearance was accompanied by a noise like the crack of doom. Other shimmering flashes lit up the palace of Herod the Great facing the temple on the western hill; as they did so the golden statues, eyeless and fearful, seemed to leap up into the black sky and stretch their arms towards it. Then the fire from heaven would be quenched again and a great thunderclap would banish the gilded idols into the mist. The rainstorm burst suddenly and the storm turned into a hurricane. On the very spot near a marble bench in the garden, where that morning the Procurator had spoken to the High Priest, a thunderbolt snapped the trunk of a cypress as though it had been a twig. With the water vapour and the hail, the balcony under the arcade was swept with torn rose-heads, magnolia leaves, small branches and sand as the hurricane scourged the garden. At the moment when the storm broke only the Procurator was left beneath the arcade. He was no longer sitting in a chair but lying on a couch beside a small low table laid with food and jugs of wine. Another, empty, couch stood on the far side of the table. An untidy, blood-red puddle lay spread out at the Procurator's feet amid the sherds of a broken jug. The servant who had laid the Procurator's table had been so terrified by his look and so nervous at his apparent displeasure that the Procurator had lost his temper with him and smashed the jug on the mosaic floor, saying: 'Why don't you look me in the eyes when you serve me? Have you stolen something? ' The African's black face turned grey, mortal terror came into his eyes and he trembled so much that he almost broke another jug, but the Procurator waved him away and the slave ran off, leaving the pool of spilt wine. As the hurricane struck, the African hid himself in a niche beside a statue of a white, naked woman with bowed head, afraid to show himself too soon yet frightened of missing the call should the Procurator summon him. Lying on his couch in the half-darkness of the storm the Procurator poured out his own wine, drank it in long gulps, stretching out his arm for an occasional piece of bread which he crumbled and ate in little pieces. Now and again he would swallow an oyster, chew a slice of lemon and drink again. Without the roar of water, without the claps of thunder which seemed to be about to smash the palace roof, without the crash of hail that hammered on the steps leading up to the balcony, a listener might have heard the Procurator muttering as he talked to himself. And if the momentary flashes of lightning had shone with a steady light an observer might have noticed that the Procurator's face, the eyes inflamed with insomnia and wine, showed impatience ; that the Procurator's glance was not only taken up by the two yellow roses drowning in the red puddle, but that he was constantly turning his face towards the garden, towards the water-lashed sand and mud; that he was expecting someone, waiting impatiently. A little time passed and the veil of water in front of the Procurator began to thin out. The storm, though still furious, was abating. No more branches creaked and fell. The lightning and thunder grew more infrequent. The cloud hovering over Jerusalem was no longer violet edged with white but a normal grey, the rearguard of the storm that was now moving onwards towards the Dead Sea. Soon the sound of the rain could be distinguished from the noise of water running down the gutters and on to the staircase down which the Procurator had walked to the square to pronounce sentence. At last even the tinkle of the fountain, drowned until now, could be heard. It grew lighter. Windows of blue began to appear in the grey veil as it fled eastward. Then from far away, above the weak patter of rain, the Procurator heard faint trumpet-calls and the tattoo of several score of horses' hooves. The sound caused the Procurator to stir and his expression to liven. The ala was returning from Mount Golgotha. To judge from the sound, they were just crossing the hippodrome square. At last the Procurator heard the long-awaited footsteps and the slap of shoe-leather on the staircase leading to the upper terrace of the garden in front of the balcony. The Procurator craned his neck and his eyes shone expectantly. Between the two marble lions there appeared first the cowled head, then the figure of a man closely wrapped in his soaking wet cloak. It was the same man with whom the Procurator, before pronouncing sentence, had held a whispered conference in a darkened room of the palace, and who had watched the execution as he played with a stick seated on a three-legged stool. Walking straight through the puddles, the cowled man crossed the terrace, crossed the mosaic floor of the balcony, and raising his hand said in a pleasant, high-pitched voice : 'Hail, Procurator! ' The visitor spoke in Latin. 'Gods! ' exclaimed Pilate. ' There's not a dry stitch on you!' What a storm! Please go to my room at once and change.' The man pushed back his cowl, revealing a completely wet head with the hair plastered down over his forehead. With a polite smile on his clean-shaven face he declined the offer of a change of clothing, assuring the Procurator that a little rain would do him no harm. 'I won't hear of it,' replied Pilate. He clapped his hands, summoning his cowering servant, and ordered him to help the visitor to change and then to bring him some hot food. The Procurator's visitor needed only a short while to dry his hair, change his clothes, his footgear, and tidy himself up, and he soon reappeared on the balcony in dry sandals, in a purple army cloak and with his hair combed. At that moment the sun returned to Jerusalem and before setting in the Mediterranean it sent its parting rays over the Procurator's hated city and gilded the balcony steps. The fountain was now playing again at full strength, pigeons had landed on the terrace, cooing and hopping between the broken twigs and pecking at the sand. The red puddle was mopped up, the fragments removed, a steaming plateful of meat was set on the table. 'I await the Procurator's orders,' said the visitor as he approached the table. 'Forget about my orders until you have sat down and drunk your wine,' answered Pilate kindly, pointing to the other couch. The man reclined, the servant poured some thick red wine into his cup. Another servant, bending cautiously over Pilate's shoulder, filled the Procurator's cup, after which he dismissed them both with a gesture. While the visitor ate and drank Pilate sipped his wine and watched his guest through narrowed eyes. The man was middle-aged with very pleasant, neat, round features and a fleshy nose. The colour of his hair was vague, though its colour lightened as it dried out. His nationality was hard to guess. His main feature was a look of good nature, which was belied by his eyes --or rather not so much by his eyes as by a peculiar way of looking at the person facing him. Usually the man kept his small eyes shielded under eyelids that were curiously enlarged, even swollen. At these moments the chinks in his eyelids showed nothing but mild cunning, the look of a man with a sense of humour. But there were times when the man who was now the Procurator's guest opened his eyelids wide and gave a person a sudden, unwavering stare as though to search out an inconspicuous spot on his nose. It only lasted a moment, after which the lids dropped, the eyes narrowed again and they shone with goodwill and sly intelligence. The visitor accepted a second cup of wine, swallowed a few oysters with obvious relish, tasted the boiled vegetables and ate a piece of meat. When he had eaten his fill he praised the wine : 'An excellent vintage. Procurator--is it Falernian? ' 'Cecuba--thirty years old,' replied the Procurator amiably. The visitor placed his hand on his heart and declined the offer of more to eat, saying that he had had enough. Pilate refilled his own cup and his guest did the same. The two men each poured a libation into the dish of meat and the Procurator, raising his cup, said in a loud voice : 'To thee, 0 Caesar, father of thy people, best and most beloved of men.' Both drank their wine to its dregs and the Africans cleared the dishes from the table, leaving fruit and jugs of wine. The Procurator dismissed the servants, and was left alone with his visitor under the arcade. 'So,' began Pilate quietly, ' what have you to tell me of the mood of the city? ' Involuntarily he turned his glance downwards to where, past the terraces of the garden, the colonnades and flat roofs glowed in the golden rays of the setting sun. 'I believe, Procurator,' said his visitor, ' that the mood of Jerusalem can now be regarded as satisfactory.' 'So I can rely on there being no further disorders? ' 'One can only rely,' Arthanius replied with a reassuring glance at the Procurator, ' on one thing in this world--on the power of great Caesar.' 'May the gods send him long life! ' Pilate said fervently, ' And universal peace! ' He was silent for a moment then went on : ' What do you think--can we withdraw the troops now? ' 'I think the cohort from the Lightning can be sent away,' replied the visitor, and added : ' It would be a good idea if it were to parade through the city before leaving.' 'A very good idea,' said the Procurator approvingly. ' I shall order it away the day after tomorrow. I shall also go myself and--I swear to you by the feast of the twelve gods, I swear by the Lares--I would have given a lot to have been able to do so today!' 'Does the Procurator not like Jerusalem?' enquired the visitor amicably. 'Merciful heavens! ' exclaimed the Procurator, smiling. ' It's the most unsettling place on earth. It isn't only the climate-- I'm ill every time I have to come here--that's only half the trouble. But these festivals! Magicians, sorcerers, wizards, the hordes of pilgrims. Fanatics--all of them. And what price this messiah of theirs, which they're expecting this year? Every moment there's likely to be some act of gratuitous bloodshed. I spend all my time shuffling the troops about or reading denunciations and complaints, half of which are directed at you. You must admit it's boring. Oh, if only I weren't in the imperial service! ' 'Yes, the festivals here are trying times,' agreed the visitor. 'I wish with all my heart that this one was over,' said Pilate forcibly. ' Then I can go back to Caesarea. Do you know, this lunatic building of Herod's'--the Procurator waved at the arcade, embracing the whole palace in a gesture--' is positively driving me out of my mind. I can't bear sleeping in it. It is the most extraordinary piece of architecture in the world . . . However, to business. First of all--is that cursed Bar-Abba giving you any trouble? ' At this the visitor directed his peculiar stare at the Procurator, but Pilate was gazing wearily into the distance, frowning with distaste and contemplating the quarter of the city which lay at his feet, fading into the dusk. The visitor's glance also faded and his eyelids lowered again. 'I think that Bar is now as harmless as a lamb,' said the visitor, his round face wrinkling. ' He is hardly in a position to make trouble now.' 'Too busy? ' asked Pilate, smiling. 'The Procurator, as usual, has put the point with great finesse.' 'But at all events,' remarked the Procurator anxiously and raised a long, thin finger adorned with a black stone,' we must...' 'The Procurator may rest assured that as long as I am in Judaea Bar will not move a step without my being on his heels.' 'That is comforting. I am always comforted when you are here.' 'The Procurator is too kind.' 'Now tell me about the execution,' said Pilate. 'What interests the Procurator in particular? ' 'Chiefly, whether there were any attempts at insurrection from the mob?' 'None,' answered the visitor. 'Good. Did you personally confirm that they were dead? ' 'Of that the Procurator may be sure.' 'And tell me ... were they given a drink before being gibbeted?' 'Yes. But he '--the visitor closed his eyes--' refused to drink.' ' Who did? ' asked Pilate. 'I beg your pardon, hegemon! ' exclaimed the visitor. ' Didn't I say? Ha-Notsri! ' 'Madman! ' said Pilate, grimacing. A vein twitched under his left eye. ' To die of sunstroke! Why refuse what the law provides for? How did he refuse? ' 'He said,' replied the guest, shutting his eyes again, ' that he was grateful and blamed no one for taking his life.' 'Whom did he thank? ' asked Pilate in a low voice. 'He did not say, hegemon . . .' 'He didn't try to preach to the soldiers, did he? ' 'No, hegemon, he was not very loquacious on this occasion. His only words were that he regarded cowardice as one of the worst human sins.' 'What made him say that? ' The Procurator's voice suddenly trembled. 'I have no idea. His behaviour was in any case strange, as it always has been.' 'In what way strange? ' 'He kept staring at individuals among the people standing around him, and always with that curiously vague smile on his face.' 'Nothing more? ' asked the husky voice. 'Nothing more.' The jug clattered against his cup as the Procurator poured himself some more wine. Having drained it he said : 'My conclusion is as follows : although we have not been able--at least not at present--to find any followers or disciples of his, we nevertheless cannot be certain that he had none,' The visitor nodded, listening intently. 'Therefore to avoid any untoward consequences,' the Procurator went on, ' please remove the three victims' bodies from the face of the earth, rapidly and without attracting attention. Bury them secretly and silently so that nothing more is heard of them.' 'Very good, hegemon,' said the visitor. He stood up and said: ' As this matter is important and will present certain difficulties, may I have your permission to go at once? ' 'No, sit down again,' said Pilate, restraining his visitor with a gesture. ' I have a couple more questions to ask you. Firstly-- your remarkable diligence in carrying out your task as chief of the secret service to the Procurator makes it my pleasant duty to mention it in a report to Rome.' The visitor blushed as he rose, bowed to the Procurator and said: 'I am only doing my duty as a member of the imperial service.' 'But,' said the hegemon, ' if you are offered promotion and transfer to another post, I should like to ask you to refuse it and stay here. I do not wish to be parted from you on any account. I shall see to it that you are rewarded in other ways.' 'I am happy to serve under you, hegemon.' 'I am very glad to hear it. Now for the second question. It concerns that man . . . what's his name? . . . Judas of Karioth.' At this the visitor again gave the Procurator his open-eyed glance, then, as was fitting, hooded his eyes again. 'They say,' the Procurator went on, lowering his voice, ' that he is supposed to have been paid for the way he took that idiot home and made him so welcome.' 'Will be paid,' corrected the visitor gently. 'How much? ' 'No one can tell, hegemon.' 'Not even you? ' said the hegemon, praising the man by his surprise. 'Alas, not even I,' replied the visitor calmly. ' But I do know that he will be paid this evening. He has been summoned to Caiaphas' palace today.' 'Ah, he must be greedy, that old man from Karioth! ' said the Procurator with a smile. ' I suppose he is an old man, isn't he?' 'The Procurator is never mistaken, but on this occasion he has been misinformed,' replied the man kindly. ' This man from Karioth is a young man.' 'Really? Can you describe him? Is he a fanatic? ' 'Oh no, Procurator.' 'I see. What else do you know about him? ' 'He is very good-looking.' 'What else? Has he perhaps a special passion? ' 'It is hard to know so much with certainty in this huge city, Procurator.' 'Come now, Arthanius! You underestimate yourself.' 'He has one passion. Procurator.' The visitor made a tiny pause. ' He has a passion for money.' 'What is his occupation? ' Arthanius looked up, reflected and answered : 'He works for one of his relatives who has a money-changer's booth.' 'I see, I see.' The Procurator was silent, looked round to make sure that there was no one on the balcony and then said in a low voice : ' The fact is--I have received information that he is to be murdered tonight.' At this the visitor not only turned his glance on the Procurator but held it for a while and then replied : 'You have nattered me. Procurator, but I fear I have not earned your commendation. I have no such information.' 'You deserve the highest possible praise,' replied the Procurator, ' but there is no doubting this information.' 'May I ask its source? ' 'You must allow me not to divulge that for the present, particularly as it is casual, vague and unreliable. But it is my duty to allow for every eventuality. I place great reliance on my instinct in these matters, because it has never failed me yet. The information is that one of Ha-Notsri's secret followers, revolted by this money-changer's monstrous treachery, has plotted with his confederates to kill the man tonight and to return his blood-money to the High Priest with a note reading : " Take back your accursed money! " ' The chief of the secret service gave the hegemon no more of his startling glances and listened, frowning, as Pilate continued : 'Do you think the High Priest will be pleased at such a gift on Passover night? ' 'Not only will he not be pleased,' replied the visitor with a smile, ' but I think. Procurator, that it will create a major scandal.' 'I think so too. That is why I am asking you to look after the affair and take all possible steps to protect Judas of Karioth.' 'The hegemon's orders will be carried out,' said Arthanius, ' but I can assure the hegemon that these villains have set themselves a very difficult task. After all, only think '--the visitor glanced round as he spoke--' they have to trace the man, kill him, then find out how much money he received and return it to Caiaphas by stealth. All that in one night? Today? ' 'Nevertheless he will be murdered tonight,' Pilate repeated firmly. ' I have a presentiment, I tell you! And it has never yet played me false.' A spasm crossed the Procurator's face and he rubbed his hands. 'Very well,' said the visitor obediently. He rose, straightened up and suddenly said coldly : 'You say he will be murdered, hegemon? ' 'Yes,' answered Pilate, ' and our only hope is your extreme efficiency.' The visitor adjusted the heavy belt under his cloak and said: 'Hail and farewell, Procurator! ' 'Ah, yes,' cried Pilate, ' I almost forgot. I owe you some money.' The visitor looked surprised. 'I am sure you do not. Procurator.' 'Don't you remember? When I arrived in Jerusalem there was a crowd of beggars, I wanted to throw them some money, I had none and borrowed from you.' 'But Procurator, that was a trifle! ' 'One should remember trifles.' Pilate turned, lifted a cloak lying on a chair behind him, picked up a leather purse from beneath it and handed it to Arthanius. The man bowed, took the purse and put it under his cloak. 'I expect,' said Pilate, ' a report on the burial and on the matter of Judas of Karioth tonight, do you hear, Arthanius, tonight. The guards will be given orders to wake me as soon as you appear. I shall be waiting for you.' 'Very well,' said the chief of the secret service and walked out on to the balcony. For a while Pilate could hear the sound of wet sand under his feet, then the clatter of his sandals on the marble paving between the two stone lions. Then legs, torso and finally cowl disappeared. Only then did the Procurator notice that the sun had set and twilight had come. 26. The Burial It may have been the twilight which seemed to cause such a sharp change in the Procurator's appearance. He appeared to have aged visibly and he looked hunched and worried. Once he glanced round and shuddered, staring at the empty chair with his cloak thrown over its back. The night of the feast was approaching, the evening shadows were playing tricks and the exhausted Procurator may have thought he had seen someone sitting in the chair. In a moment of superstitious fear the Procurator shook the cloak, then walked away and began pacing the balcony, occasionally rubbing his hands, drinking from the goblet on the table, or halting to stare unseeingly at the mosaic floor as though trying to decipher some writing in it. For the second time that day a brooding depression overcame him. Wiping his brow, where he felt only a faintly nagging memory of the hellish pain from that morning, the Procurator racked his brain in an attempt to define the cause of his mental agony. He soon realised what it was, but unable to face it, he tried to deceive himself. It was clear to him that this morning he had irretrievably lost something and now he was striving to compensate for that loss with a trivial substitute, which took the form of belated action. His self-deception consisted in trying to persuade himself that his actions this evening were no less significant than the sentence which he had passed earlier in the day. But in this attempt the Procurator had little success. At one of his turns he stopped abruptly and whistled. In reply there came a low bark from the twilight shadows and a gigantic grey-coated dog with pointed ears bounded in from the garden, wearing a gold-studded collar. 'Banga, Banga,' cried the Procurator weakly. The dog stood up on its hind legs, put its forepaws on its master's shoulders, almost knocking him over, and licked his cheek. The Procurator sat down in a chair. Banga, tongue hanging out and panting fast, lay down at Pilate's feet with an expression of delight that the thunderstorm was over, the only thing in the world that frightened this otherwise fearless animal; delighted, too, because it was back again with the man it loved, respected and regarded as the most powerful being on earth, the ruler of all men, thanks to whom the dog too felt itself a specially privileged and superior creature. But lying at his feet and gazing into the twilit garden without even looking at Pilate the dog knew at once that its master was troubled. It moved, got up, went round to Pilate's side and laid its forepaws and head on the Procurator's knees, smearing the hem of his cloak with wet sand. Banga's action seemed to mean that he wanted to comfort his master and was prepared to face misfortune with him. This he tried to express in his eyes and in the forward set of his ears. These two, dog and man who loved each other, sat in vigil together on the balcony that night of the feast. Meanwhile Arthanius was busy. Leaving the upper terrace of the garden, he walked down the steps to the next terrace and turned right towards the barracks inside the palace grounds. These quarters housed the two centuries who had accompanied the Procurator to Jerusalem for the feast-days, together with the Procurator's secret bodyguard commanded by Arthanius. He spent a little while in the barracks, no longer than ten minutes, but immediately afterwards three carts drove out of the barrack yard loaded with entrenching tools and a vat of water, and escorted by a section of fifteen mounted men wearing grey cloaks. Carts and escort left the palace grounds by a side-gate, set off westward, passed through a gateway in the city wall and first took the Bethlehem road northward; they reached the crossroads by the Hebron gate and there turned on to the Jaffa road, along the route taken by the execution party that morning. By now it was dark and the moon had risen on the horizon. Soon after the carts and their escort section had set off, Ar-thanius also left the palace on horseback, having changed into a shabby black chiton, and rode into the city. After a while he could have been seen riding towards the fortress of Antonia, situated immediately north of the great temple. The visitor spent an equally short time in the