Esora, who was the braver of the two, often said, Master, strive to quell thy fears, for the new procurator has given pause to the story of the resurrection.  We have heard little of it lately, and Jesus is beginning to be forgotten.  Not so, Esora, for to-day I heard—­and Joseph began a long relation which ended always with the phrase:  we are beset with danger.  We have been saying that now for a long while, Esora answered, yet nothing has befallen us yet, and what cannot be cured must be endured.  We must bear with him.  If, Esora, I could bring myself to break all promises to my father and go away with him to Egypt this misery would be ended.  Master, thou canst not do this thing; thou hast been thinking of it all the winter, and were it possible it would be accomplished already.  If it hadn’t been for that dream—­and Joseph began to relate again the dream related many times before.  Forget thy dream, Master, Esora said to him, for it will not help us; as I have said, what cannot be cured must be endured.  We must put our trust in time, which brings many changes; and in the spring something will befall; he’ll be taken from us.  The spring, Esora?  And in safety?  Tell me, and in safety?  Nay, Master, I cannot tell thee more than I have said; something will befall, but what that thing may be I cannot say.  Will it be in the winter or in the spring?  It will be in February or March, she said.  It was, however, before then, in January (the winter being a mild one, the birds were already singing in the shaws), that a camel-driver came to the house on the hillside to tell Joseph that a camel had been stolen from them on their way from Jericho to Jerusalem during the night or in the early morning, and with many words and movements of the hands, that irritated Joseph, he sought to describe the valley where they pitched their tent.  Get on with thy story, Joseph said; and the man told that they had succeeded in tracking the band, a small one, to a cave, out of which, he said, it will be easy to smoke them if Fadus, the procurator, will send soldiers at once, for they may go on to another cave, not deeming it safe to remain long in the same one.  Didst beg the camel back from the robbers?  Joseph asked, for he was not thinking of the robbery, but of his meeting with Fadus.  No, Master, there was no use doing that.  They would have taken our lives.  But we followed them, spying them from behind rocks all the way, and the cave having but one entrance they can be smoked to death with a few trusses of damp straw.  But care must be taken lest our camel perish with them.  If we could get them to give up the camel first, I’m thinking—­

It was a serious matter to hear that robbers had again established themselves in the hills; and while Joseph pondered the disagreeable tidings a vagrant breeze carried the scent of the camel-driver’s sheepskin straight into Jesus’ nostrils as he came up the path with a bundle of faggots on his shoulders.  He stopped at first perplexed by the smell and then, recognising it, he hurried forward, till he stood before the spare frame and withered brown face of the desert wanderer.