At that moment a man came out from the shadow of a rock and approached the wayfarers, who drew back quickly, thinking they were about to be attacked.  It is Judas, Joseph whispered, one of the apostles.  You have seen Jesus?  Judas asked breathlessly, and when Nicodemus told how Jesus had said he would go up to Jerusalem for the Passover he cried out:  to lead us against the Temple?  He must be saved.  From what?  Nicodemus asked:  from his mission?  He must go on to the end with the work he has been called out of heaven to accomplish.  I can see that you have been speaking with him.  Called out of heaven to accomplish!  And then, clasping his hands, Judas looked with imploring eyes upon them:  save him, he cried, save him, for if not, I must myself, for every day his pride redoubles and now he believes himself to be the Messiah, the Messiah as sent by God, Judas cried.  By whom else could he be sent?  Joseph replied.  If he be not taken by the priests and put to death he will be driven by the demon into the last blasphemy; one which no Jew has yet committed even in his heart, and if that word be spoken all will be accomplished, and the Lord will choose another nation from among the Gentiles.  He will declare himself God, Judas continued.  Nicodemus and Joseph raised their hands.  He speaks already of the time before the world was, when he and his Father were one; and setting aside the Scriptures in his madness he has begun to imagine that the angels that revolted against God were changed into men, and given the world for abode till their sins so angered the Father (remark you, of whom Jesus was then a part) that he determined to destroy the world; at which Jesus in his great love of men (or of fallen angels, for betimes he doesn’t know what he is saying) said he would put Godhead off and become man, and give his life as atonement for the sins of men.  Sirs, I’ll ask you how God or man may by his death make atonement for the sins that men have committed?  Hear me to the end, for as many minutes as you have listened, I have listened hours.  By this sacrifice of his life his teaching will become known to men and he will reign the one and only king till the world itself crumbles and perishes.  Then he will become one with his Father, and from that moment there will be but one God.  These are the thoughts, noble Sirs, on which he is brooding, and if he go up to yon town it will be to——­ Judas could not bring himself to pronounce the words “declare himself God,” so blasphemous did they seem to him.  And before the wayfarers could ask him, as they were minded to, if he were sure that he had rightly understood Jesus, the apostle had bidden them farewell, and, running up a by-track, disappeared into the darkness, leaving behind him a memory of a large bony nose hanging over a thin black moustache that barely covered his lips.