He cringed a little as he stood.

He had Jewish blood in his veins, which, while it raised him above his fellows in Osterno, carried with it the usual tendency to cringe.

It is in the blood; it is part of what the people who stood without Pilate's palace took upon themselves and upon their children.
"Your Excellency," he said, "knows what they are.

It is slow.

They make no progress.