Nicodemus invited Joseph to follow Jesus, saying that at a safe distance he would like to see him ride through the gates into the city; but Joseph, sorely troubled in his mind, could not answer him, and an hour later was hastening along the Jericho road, praying all the while that he might be given strength to keep the promise he had given to his father.  But no sooner was he in Jericho than he began to feel ashamed of himself, and after resisting the impulse to return to Jesus for two days he yielded to it, and returned obediently the way he had come, uncertain whether shame of his cowardice or love was bringing him back.  One or the other it must be, he said, as he came round the bend in the road into Bethany; and it was soon after passing through that village, somewhere about three o’clock, that he met his masons coming from Mount Scropas.  Coming from my tomb, he said to himself, and, reining up his horse and speaking to them, he heard that his tomb was finished.  We’ve chiselled a great stone to be rolled into the doorway, he heard one of the masons say; another uttered vauntingly that the stone closed the tomb perfectly, and Joseph was about to press his horse forward when the men called after him, and, gathering about his stirrup, they related that Jesus of Nazareth had been tried and condemned by Pilate that morning, and was now hanging on a cross, a-top of Golgotha, one of the masons said:  you can see him yourself, Master, if you be going that way, and between two thieves.  One of them was to have been Jesus Bar-Abba, but the people cried out that he was to be released instead of Jesus.  As Joseph repeated the words, Bar-Abba instead of Jesus, as if he only half understood them, the masons reminded him that it was the custom to deliver up a prisoner to the people at the time of the Passover.  At the time of the Passover, he repeated....  At last, realising what had happened, his face became overwrought; his eyes and mouth testified to the grief he was suffering; and he pressed his spurs to his horse’s side, and would have been away beyond call if two of his workmen had not seized the bridle and almost forced the horse on his haunches.  Loose my bridle, Joseph cried, astonished and beside himself.  A moment with you, Master.  Be careful to speak no word in his favour, and make no show of sympathy, else a Zealot’s knife will be in your back before evening, for they be seeking the Galileans everywhere, at the priests’ bidding.  Before Joseph could break away he heard that the priests stirred up the people against Jesus, giving it forth against him that he had come to Jerusalem to burn down the Temple, and would set up another—­built without the help of hands, of what materials he did not know, but not of stones nor wood, yet a Temple that will last for ever, the mason shouted after Joseph, who had stuck his spurs again into his horse and was riding full tilt towards a hill about half-a-mile from the city walls.  On his way thither he met some of the populace—­the remnant returning from the crucifixion—­and he rode up the ascent at a gallop in the hope that he might be in time to save Jesus’ life.