to them.  But before Nicodemus could answer any of them the lion-hunter cried out that a priest was not so terrible a beast as a lion, and while he was with them Jesus had nothing to fear.  At which his enemy in the crowd began to jeer, saying:  Asiel wears the lion’s skin, we all know, but he has never told anybody who killed the lion for him.  And the men might have hit each other if the woman who suffered for seven years had not cried out:  now, what are you fighting for? know ye not that Jesus cannot come down to us, for he is waiting for a sign from his Father?  From our Father, John thundered out.  Nicodemus said he had spoken truly, and the crowd followed Nicodemus and Joseph a little way.  Do not return to the house of Simon the Leper.  Leave Jesus in peace to-night to pray, meditate, and rest, for he needs rest.  He’ll lead you to Jerusalem as soon as he gets a sign from our Father which is in heaven, Nicodemus said.

At these words the people dispersed in great joy, and Joseph and Nicodemus walked on together in silence, till Joseph, feeling that they were safely out of hearing, asked if Jesus spoke of his intention to take Jerusalem by assault.  Nicodemus seemed to examine his memory for a moment, and then, as if forgetting Joseph’s question, he began to tell that Jesus was standing in the middle of the room when he entered, seemingly unaware that his disciples were assembled about the house.  His eyes fixed, as it were, on his thoughts or ideas, he did not hear the door open, and to get his attention Nicodemus had to lay his hand upon his arm.  At his touch Jesus awoke from his dream, but it seemed quite a little while before he could shake himself free from his dream, and was again of this world.  Joseph asked Nicodemus to repeat his first words.  Was he violent or affectionate?  Affectionate, gentle, and winning, Nicodemus answered.  A few moments of sweetness, and then he seemed suddenly to become old and wild and savage.

The two men stopped on the road, and Nicodemus looking into Joseph’s eyes, said:  I asked him if he were going up to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover, and after speaking a few words on the subject he broke out, coiling himself like a diseased panther meditating on its spring, and as if uncertain if he could accomplish it, he fell back into a chair and into his dream, out of which he spoke a few words clear and reasonable; and then with a concentrated hate he spoke of the Temple as a resort of thieves and of the priests as the despoilers of widows and orphans, saying that the law must be abrogated and the Temple destroyed.  Until then there would be no true religion in Judea.  It is like that he speaks now; the one-time reformer sees clearly that the Temple must go.  And would he, Joseph asked, build another in its place?  I’m not sure that he would.  I put the question to him and he was uncertain if the old foundations could be used.  The old spirits of lust, and blood, and money would haunt the walls,