BEFORE THE COCK CREW
The primal instinct which has ever led man to the kind bosom of earth in
his darkest hour led the man Christ Jesus to Gethsemane. And there under
the dense shadow of the ancient olives he threw himself down upon the
ground for that last exceeding bitter struggle with his humanity.
And Peter, the Galilean, and the others—slept.
Tor had followed them, noiseless and unseen as a friendly shadow. He did
not approach the King, his Master, nor did he again venture to accost
Peter. Squatting motionless at the gate of the garden, the child thought
confusedly but joyfully of his deliverance from the house of Pilate.
“It was because I prayed to my Father,” he told himself, and hugged his
lean little body with a low laugh of pleasure. “Hereafter I need fear
nothing. I will call and he will deliver me, and neither man nor demon can
hinder.”
His soul went out in a flood of love toward the Man who had opened his
eyes, and who was at that moment lying upon his face under the olives in a
wordless agony, and the child’s pure thoughts mingled with the cloudy
forms of angels which comforted him.
Somewhere, afar off, lights gleamed among the dark trees; stealthy
footfalls and hushed voices beyond the garden wall reached the boy’s keen
ears. He sprang up and listened intently.
The glare of smoking torches and the irregular tread of hurrying feet sent
vibrations of horror through the shuddering night. But the Man of Nazareth
no longer lay upon his face amid the shadows. He came forth to receive the
brimming cup of his sorrows radiant with the power that had never failed
him. Stooping over his sleeping disciples he called them: “Arise, let us
be going: behold, he that betrayeth me is at hand.”
Now Judas had before agreed with the officers that he would greet his
Master with a kiss. “So that ye may know the man from his
disciples,—stupid dolts every one and not worth the taking.”
As the motley crowd of temple police, bearing torches, followed by a
rabble of the curious, advanced into the gloom of the garden a
superstitious awe fell upon them. They drew back to a man and hesitated,
casting fearful glances at the dark masses of trees moving gently in the
night wind. Some unseen, noiseless terror seemed to lurk amid the shifting
shadows. “If the man be a prophet,” whispered one, “there be blasting
lightnings at his call. Let us go back.”
But Judas turned his sneering face upon the speaker with a low laugh of
scorn. “Master! Master!” he cried mockingly, and running forward he
clasped and kissed the Saviour of the world.
Jesus said to him, “Judas, betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?”
“Lord, shall we smite with the sword?” cried one of the disciples.
Not waiting for an answer, Peter drew his weapon and aimed a mighty blow
at the officer nearest him. The man fell back with a bellow of rage and
pain, while his companions sprang forward and seized Jesus.
The eyes of the prisoner, grave, calm, and compassionate, were fixed upon
the wounded man, from whose severed ear blood spurted in a torrent.
“Permit me thus far,” he said gently to the officers who grasped him by
the arms, and reaching forth he touched the ear and healed it.
Then that omniscient gaze turned full upon Peter, who stood staring in a
frozen stupor at the being he had believed to be the invincible Messiah.
“Put up again thy sword into its place,” said the Master; “for all they
that take the sword shall perish with the sword.” Then, answering further
the thoughts that looked out of the bewildered, terror‐stricken eyes of
the man whom he had named “The Rock,” he said: “Thinkest thou that I
cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than
twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled,
that thus it must be?”
But he uttered no prayer to his Father, and the ranks of the angelic host
remained hid from the expectant eyes that searched the empty heavens.
In that same hour Jesus said to the multitude which gathered about him,
threatening, yet awe‐stricken by the miracle, “Are ye come out, as against
a thief, with swords and staves? When I was daily with you in the temple,
ye stretched forth no hands against me: but this is your hour, and the
power of darkness.”
At that word the darkness closed in about him—and it was night.
In the courtyard of the high priest’s house Tor lurked in the shelter of a
doorway and looked on. No one had noticed the child as he slipped in with
the crowd that held at its core the silent Man of Nazareth. Peter had also
followed. Tor watched the Galilean seat himself with the others at a small
fire which was kindled in the midst of the place. He had turned his back
upon the travesty of a legal examination which was going on at the upper
end of the hall and was warming his fingers with an air of complete
indifference.
“So the dangerous prophet is proven but a man of straw, after all,” quoth
one of the lesser officers of the police with a contemptuous gesture
toward the meek figure of the Nazarene. “Look you upon the fellow now, he
hath never a word to say for himself, and there are no lightnings—no
thunders. By the seven‐branched candlestick, I declare to you that I was
in a cold sweat when I laid hands on the man. But I felt nothing more
terrible than an arm of flesh and blood under his rabbi’s robe.”
“A rabbi’s robe, indeed,” chuckled another. “He will wear another sort
before many days, I promise you.”
“But what sayest thou to the healing of Ben‐Joseph’s ear?” demanded a
woman who had approached the fire. “I have just talked with the son of
Joseph. He declares that from henceforth he is a believer.”
A great shout of laughter greeted this speech. “Ben‐Joseph hath ever a
nimble tongue,” quoth a black‐bearded young fellow who carried a short
sword stuck in his belt. “A nimble tongue, say I, and the long ears of an
ass. One of the Galileans made a lunge at him, but, being a clumsy knave
of a fisherman and knowing naught of the uses of a sword, he merely grazed
the ear.”
“Nay, fellow, the ear was sliced clean off,” growled Peter, stung to
retort by the sneering words of the Judean.
The woman bent forward to stare at the speaker. “Art not thou also one of
the man’s disciples?” she asked curiously.
“I am not,” said Peter shortly. He was listening painfully to his Master’s
voice in low‐toned response to a question of the high priest. At sound of
a violent, flat‐handed blow, he twisted quite about in his place and
beheld the colorless face of Jesus slowly reddening under the insult. “If
I have spoken evil,” he was saying in a low, clear voice, “bear witness of
the evil; but if well, why smitest thou me?”
The Galilean rose from his place at the fire, breathing deep, his strong
hands clenched at his sides in futile anger. “Why doth he not blast them
with the word of his power?” he asked himself as he stealthily watched the
terrible mockery of justice which was now drawing to its close.
They were questioning the prisoner sharply now. Peter could see the dark
looks of satisfaction on the faces of the priests and Sanhedrists and the
sneering laughter of the rabble at their back. Then came a show of
witnesses against the prisoner. Among the witnesses stood Chelluh, the
beggar who had once been blind. “The man healed me of blindness—yes, it is
so, most worshipful lords,” he whined. “’Twas accomplished by black magic
and the power of Beelzebub, I declare to you, for he who would lightly
destroy the temple of God must needs be of the devil.”
“What sayest thou of the temple, fellow?” demanded the high priest. “Did
the man dare to threaten the temple?”
“Most holy and reverend high priest,” replied Chelluh, “the Nazarene said
in my hearing, and in the hearing of this friend of mine—an honest
craftsman, as thou seest—‘I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to
build it in three days!’”
The high priest arose in his place and fixed his eyes upon the prisoner.
“Answerest thou nothing?” he hissed between set teeth. “What is the
meaning of this saying which these reputable witnesses bring against
thee?”
Jesus seemed not to have heard the question. His inscrutable eyes were
bent upon the ground; upon his face shone a faint, mysterious light. The
high priest bent forward and stared at him, unrelentingly. “_I adjure thee
by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son
of God!_” he cried in a terrible voice.
The Man of Nazareth lifted his meek head at that word. “I am,” he said
slowly—distinctly. “And ye shall see the Son of man sitting at the right
hand of power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.”
“He hath spoken blasphemy!” exclaimed the high priest, rending his
garments with a gesture of outraged holiness. “What further need have we
of witnesses? Ye have heard the blasphemy: what think ye?”
“Death—death! He is guilty!” came the deep‐throated answer of the priests.
Cries of triumph, dreadful laughter, the sound of buffeting palms burst
forth from judges and witnesses alike. Some one was tying a handkerchief
over the face of the prisoner with the mocking words, “Behold the
Prophet!”
“Prophesy unto us, thou Christ. Who is he that smote thee?” yelled the
savage voice of the beggar who had received his sight; and he smote his
blinded Saviour with open palms twice—thrice—many times.
A suffocating mist rolled blood‐red before the eyes of Peter. “If he were
the Messiah,” he groaned, “this could not be. The man hath mocked and
deceived us from the beginning!”
Somewhere, not far away, sounded the cheerful crowing of a cock. “I will
go back to Galilee,” he muttered. But his leaden feet carried him no
farther from the awful scene than the porch. Here he loitered, listening
with a frightful, strained attention to the sounds of ribaldry and
laughter that came out to him through the half‐open doors. “I will go,” he
said aloud. “I must go. It is already day.”
The servants of the high priest’s household were astir and cheerfully busy
with their morning tasks. One of them, a buxom maid bearing a jar upon her
head, paused and stared attentively at the Galilean. “Aha!” she exclaimed.
“This man also was with Jesus, the Nazarene.”
Peter raised his heavy eyes to the fresh‐colored, inquisitive face of the
woman. “I know not the man,” he snarled with an oath. The woman went her
way with a laughing gesture of unbelief.
Then others of the bystanders began to cast curious glances at the haggard
face and wild eyes of the stranger. They whispered among themselves for a
space, then a man wearing the livery of the house of Annas advanced with
an air of determination. “Certainly, thou art one of them,” he said
authoritatively, “for thou art a Galilean.”
Peter turned upon the man with a torrent of angry oaths. “I tell thee,
fellow,” he cried loudly, “that I know not this man of whom thou
speakest.”
The cock crew for the second time.
The great doors of the judgment‐hall were flung wide, and the motley
throng of priests and underlings, glutted with their awful triumph, pushed
through, dragging the piteous figure of their prisoner. The face of the
Nazarene gleamed white and calm amid the dark looks of his persecutors;
his loving eyes turned for the last time upon Peter and flashed into his
darkened soul the remembrance of that sad word of prophecy: “Before the
cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice.”
And Peter went out and wept bitterly.