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the street that led from the bazaar to  the hippodrome  square, and by cries
of 'Look out!'
     A soldier,  standing alone in the cleared space of  the  square  with a
standard  in his hand,  waved it anxiously,  and  then  the  procurator, the
legate of the legion, the secretary and the convoy stopped.
     A cavalry  ala, at an ever-lengthening  trot, flew out into the square,
so as to cross it at one side, bypassing the mass of people, and ride down a
lane under a stone  wall  covered with  creeping vines, taking the  shortest
route to Bald Mountain.
     At a  flying trot, small as a boy, dark as a mulatto, the commander  of
the ala, a Syrian,  coming abreast  of Pilate,  shouted something in a  high
voice and snatched his sword  from  its  sheath. The  angry, sweating  black
horse  shied and reared.  Thrusting his sword  back  into  its  sheath,  the
commander struck the horse's  neck with his crop, brought him down, and rode
off  into  the lane, breaking  into a gallop.  After him,  three  by  three,
horsemen flew in  a cloud  of  dust, the  tips  of their light bamboo lances
bobbing,  and faces dashed past  the procurator - looking especially swarthy
under their white turbans - with merrily bared, gleaming teeth.
     Raising dust to  the sky, the ala  burst into the lane, and the last to
ride past Pilate  was a soldier with a trumpet slung on his back, blazing in
the sun.
     Shielding himself from the dust with his hand  and  wrinkling his  face
discontentedly,  Pilate started  on in  the  direction  of  the gates to the
palace garden, and after him came the legate, the secretary, and the convoy.
     It was around ten o'clock in the morning.


CHAPTER 3. The Seventh Proof
     'Yes,  it was  around  ten  o'clock in  the morning, my  esteemed  Ivan
Nikolaevich,' said the professor.
     The poet passed his  hand over his face like a man  just coming to  his

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