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neither Aramaic nor even Greek very well. Without asking my leave he pulled the knife from its sheath and then with a grin made as if to stab me with it, the whole company bursting into laughter when I started back. He then pulled out his own knife, which had a curved blade and a handle of tooled leather, and offered it in exchange. I was afraid this was some custom of his that I would be forced to honour.
    “It was my father’s,” I said of my own, which was the truth and which seemed to satisfy him, since he returned the thing to me.
    With each moment I sat there, it seemed increasingly farfetched that I should carry my plan through; and indeed there was that part of me that was happy I had been compelled to stop there. The thing was simple enough—I lacked the courage. Or perhaps for a moment I did not see the point,of Ezekias’s death or my own, the useless pile of bones we would amount to.
    I asked as casually as I could manage after their prisoner.
    “We always carry a Jew to draw off the dogs,” the captain said, his first words to me.
    The soldiers at once broke into laughter, not bothering to restrain themselves in the least on my account, so that I felt sickened to have sat down amongst them. I started to rise but one of them held me back, clapping an aggressive arm around me, until I thought I must draw my dagger then and there. In the meanwhile, however, the captain’s attention had been drawn to the square. I looked out to see that a small crowd had gathered there near Ezekias—it seemed the holy man, while the soldiers had been busy with me, had gone to the well to get a scoop of water to bring over to him, and people had gathered around now to see if he would get away with the thing.
    The captain had one of his men out there in an instant, who snatched the scoop away and sent the water spilling, in the process practically knocking the holy man over. Some of the crowd jeered him at that, for it was one thing to torture a prisoner but another to slight a Jewish holy man; and then someone, it wasn’t clear who, threw a stone at him. The soldier drew his cutlass then and it seemed for a moment that there would be a riot, which however would have suited me very well. But the captain at once roused his men and hurried them out into the square, where they stood with their hands on their swords until the crowd had backed off.
    In all this I had quietly made my way back to the edge of the market, still awaiting a chance if one should present itself. But in a moment it grew clear that my plan had been trulyfoiled now, for the captain had apparently had enough of the place and had begun rounding up his men to resume their march. He sent one of the soldiers back to pay the tavernkeeper, lest he lodge a complaint and the Romans bar Antipas from their roads; some of the others prepared his horse. But when they went to loose Ezekias from his post, he simply slumped to the ground and did not move.
    The captain squatted down to him and held a hand out to feel for his breath. After a moment he stood and kicked the slumped body over angrily, then for good measure pulled out his cutlass and stuck it into Ezekias’s side. A trickle of blood seeped up through the wound.
    “Leave him,” the captain said, and abandoned him there by the hitching post.
    The captain wasted no time now in taking up his march again, and in a matter of minutes he and his men were already out the gates. I stood there in the square and could not believe the way the thing had ended, nor could I say if it showed the Lord’s mercy or his spite.
    The crowd around Ezekias had grown again but no one dared to touch him, fearing who knew what defilement. There were mumbles of confusion, then the question of what should be done with the body; I cut off debate by undertaking to look after it. Of the entire crowd the only one who came forward to offer to help was the holy man.
    “I can manage it,” I said, given his state. But he had already moved to take