His master seemed unable to give either order, and stood at gaze till the servant reminded him that Nicodemus was waiting in the hall; and then, as if yielding to superior force, Joseph answered he was willing to receive the visitor, regretting his decision almost at once, while the servant descended the stairs, and vehemently on seeing Nicodemus, who entered, the lamplight falling upon him, more brilliantly apparelled than Joseph had ever seen him.  A crimson mantle hung from his shoulders and a white hand issuing from a purfled sleeve grasped a lance; weapons, jewelled and engraved, appeared among the folds of his raiment, and he strode about the room in silence, as if he thought it necessary to give Joseph a few moments in which to consider his war gear (intended as an elaborate piece of symbolism).  In response to the riddle presented, Joseph began to wonder if Nicodemus regarded himself rather as a riddle than as a reality—­a riddle that might be propounded again and again, or if he could not do else than devise gaud and trappings to conceal his inner emptiness, a dust-heap of which he himself was grown weary.  A great deal of dust-heap there certainly is, Joseph said to himself as his eyes followed the strange figure prowling along and across the room, breaking occasionally into speech.  But he could not help thinking that beneath the dust-heap there was something of worth, for when Nicodemus spoke, he spoke well, and to speak well means to think well, and to think well, Joseph was prone to conclude, means to act well, if not always, at least sometimes.  But could an apt phrase condone the accoutrements?  He had added a helmet to the rest of his war gear, and the glint of the lamplight on the brass provoked Joseph to beg of him to unarm and relate his story, that burdens you more than your armour, he said.  At these words Nicodemus was raised from the buffoon to a man of sense and shrewdness.  I have come here, he said, to speak to you about Jesus.  But the story is a somewhat perilous one, and as it rains no longer I will walk with you along the hillside and tell it to you.

He raised his hand to Joseph, forbidding him to speak, and it was not till they reached a lonely track that Nicodemus stopped suddenly:  his death had been resolved upon, he said, and the two men stood for a moment looking into each other’s eyes without speaking.  It was Nicodemus who fell to walking again and the relation of circumstances.  He had come straight from the Sanhedrin, where he defended Jesus against his enemies and accusers at some personal risk, as he was quickly brought to see by Raguel’s retort:  and art thou too a Galilean?  And walking with his eyes on the ground, as if communing with himself, Nicodemus related that there was now but one opinion in the Sanhedrin:  Jesus and Judaism were incompatible; one or the other must go.  Better that one man should perish than that a nation should be destroyed, he said, are the words one hears.  Stopping again, he said, looking Joseph in the face: