forward in disorder, covered with dust and shouting uninterruptedly.
In the middle of the crowd walked the criminals, bending down under
the weight of their crosses, and over them the scourges of the Roman
soldiers were wriggling about like black snakes. One of the men, he
of the long light hair, in a torn blood-stained cloak, stumbled over
a stone which was thrown under his feet, and he fell. The shouting
grew louder, and the crowd, like coloured sea water, closed in about
the man on the ground. Ben-Tovit suddenly shuddered for pain; he
felt as though some one had pierced a red-hot needle into his tooth
and turned it there; he groaned and walked away from the parapet,
angry and squeamishly indifferent.

"How they are shouting!" he said enviously, picturing to himself
their wide-open mouths with strong, healthy teeth, and how he himself
would have shouted if he had been well. This intensified his
toothache, and he shook his muffled head frequently, and roared:
"Moo-Moo...."

"They say that He restored sight to the blind," said his wife, who
remained standing at the parapet, and she threw down a little
cobblestone near the place where Jesus, lifted by the whips, was
moving slowly.

"Of course, of course! He should have cured my toothache," replied
Ben-Tovit ironically, and he added bitterly with irritation: "What
dust they have kicked up! Like a herd of cattle! They should all be
driven away with a stick! Take me down, Sarah!"

The wife proved to be right. The spectacle had diverted Ben-Tovit
slightly--perhaps it was the rats' litter that had helped after all--