"Said he so indeed?" exclaimed the other man, who was called Simeon. "Then is it something more than senile madness that doth ail our worshipful lord; the devil himself hath a hand in it."
"Listen," said Ben Kish, leaning toward his companion, "I am minded to tell thee what he further said to me in private. Swear to me that thou wilt not reveal it?"
Ben Kish looked behind him and on either side as if he feared that some one might be lurking near. The glimmering wastes of desert showed vast and empty, stretching away beneath the keen sparkle of countless stars; the night wind wandering in the hollow darkness cried aloud for loneliness; the crouching camels stared at the meagre fire and chewed their cuds in drowsy contentment. "I have a feeling that some one is near--and listening," he said, shivering a little, and throwing a fresh handful of fuel on the dying fire.
The other man laughed, but he also shivered. "There is always that feeling in the desert at night," he said. "It must be the stars, that look down like large eyes out of heaven; or the wind, that hath in it the sound of a woman wailing for her dead. But what hast thou to say to me?"
"I have sworn--and by the temple; what more wouldst thou?"
"I spoke with him concerning our chief," said Ben Kish, "of how he came up to Jerusalem and fell in with them that told him of the Nazarene, and how that since that time he doth continually exhort and preach to us concerning the man, calling him the Messiah, the Holy and Righteous One foretold by the prophets and by Moses.
"’Alas,’ said the Rabbi, ’he hath been snared by evil counsels, and he will also lead away after him all that hear.’
"’He hath not so led me,’ I said, ’for I believe not on a man who commands that if an enemy smite thee on one cheek, thou immediately turn to him the other that he may smite again; and if a thief take away thy camel let him have thy horse also; it is unjust!’
"’It is not only unjust; it is unlawful,’ said this wise Rabbi. ’An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth is the law--a good law and wise.’"
"Yet must we submit to the chief of our tribe," said the man who listened, "that is also the law."
"Nay, friend," cried Ben Kish triumphantly, "listen still further. I said something of the like to the wise Rabbi, and he made me answer thus: ’The unbeliever and the blasphemer shall be cast forth and his inheritance shall be given to them which are faithful, for thus is it written in the law. If, therefore, there be them amongst you which are able, rise up and overcome this man who hath spoken thus blasphemously, and cast him forth that the inheritance be thine; so may the Lord ever prevail against false prophets and workers of iniquity.’"