him in the end as he expected he would, he continued:  he’d have done better to have given Pilate answers whereby Pilate would have been able to save him from the cross.  Pilate was anxious to save him, but, as Nicodemus said, Jesus had come to think that it had been decreed in heaven that his blood must be spilt, so that he might rise again, as it were, out of his own blood, to return in a chariot with his Father in three days....  But will he return to inhabit again this beautiful mould?  Joseph asked, and striving against the doubt that the sight of the dead put into his mind, he left the tomb with the intention of rolling the stone into the door.  Better not to see him than to doubt him, he said.  But who will, he asked himself, roll away the stone for Martha and Mary when they come with spices and fine linen for the embalming?  His mind was divided whether he should close the tomb and go his way, or watch through the Sabbath, and while seeking to come upon a resolve he was overcome by desire to see his dead friend once more, and he entered the tomb, holding high the lantern so that he might better see him.  But as he approached the couch on which the body lay he stopped, and the colour went out of his face; he trembled all over; for the sheet with which Martha and Mary covered over the face had fallen away, and a long tress of hair had dropped across the cheek.  He must have moved, or angels must have moved him, and, uncertain whether Jesus was alive or dead, Joseph remembered Lazarus, and stood watching, cold and frightened, waiting for some movement.

He is not dead, he is not dead, he cried, and his joy died, for on the instant Jesus passed again into the darkness of swoon.  Joseph had no water to bathe his forehead with, nor even a drop to wet his lips with.  There is none nearer than my house, he said.  I shall have to carry him thither.  But if a wayfarer meets us the news that a man newly risen from the tomb was seen on the hillside with another will soon reach Jerusalem; and the Pharisees will send soldiers....  The tomb will be violated; the houses in the neighbourhood will be searched.  Why then did he awaken only to be taken again?  Jesus lay as still as the dead, and hope came again to Joseph.  On a Sabbath evening, he said, I shall be able to carry him to my house secretly.  The distance is about half-a-mile.  But to carry a swooning man half-a-mile up a crooked and steep path among rocks will take all my strength.

He took cognisance of his thews and sinews, and feeling them to be strong and like iron, he said:  I can do it, and fell to thinking of his servants loitering in the passages, talking as they ascended the stairs, stopping half-way and talking again, and getting to bed slowly, more slowly than ever on this night, the night of all others that he wished them sound asleep in their beds.  Half-a-mile up a zigzagging path I shall have to carry him; he may die in my arms; and he entertained the thought for a moment that he might go for his servants, who would bring with them oil and wine; but dismissing the thought as unwise, he left the tomb to see if the darkness were thick enough to shelter himself and his burden.