He looked up and frowned, “At about the fourth hour after sundown.”

“And the supper had commenced soon after sundown?”

“Yes, as is our Passover custom—as soon as the first three stars became visible and we heard the three fanfares from the Temple trumpets.”

“Then by the time you arrived here, Judas had already been absent from your party for nearly four hours?”

“More or less.”

“Didn’t that concern anyone—his long delay in rejoining the group?”

Matthew shook his head. “It had been a long evening, and our only concern was returning to the warmth of our cots in Bethany. There was some grumbling against Judas for his tardiness, although all of us realized that his time was never his own as the keeper of our purse.”

“What happened when you arrived here in the garden?”

Matthew led Joseph and me back to the boulder on which he had been resting his hands when we found him. “Jesus told us to wait while he prayed. He knelt here, against this rock, and there”—he pointed only a few paces away—“there Peter and James and John remained, close to him as he requested. The rest of us walked on, up this path, to a familiar cave we hoped would protect us from the dampness until Judas returned. There! See?”

I could barely make it out Almost hidden from view, behind a cluster of olive trees, was a smooth outcropping of limestone, its side hollowed by the elements into a deep rounded cavity. Matthew paused on what had become a rather steep uphill climb and said, “The eight of us sat inside there, huddled together, and waited. Soon, because of the lateness of the hour and the fullness of our stomachs, not to mention the wine that had flowed freely during the meal, all of us were fast asleep on the damp floor of the cave.”

“And how long did you sleep?”

“I don’t know. The next thing I remember was the strong hand of James, the brother of John, shaking me and whispering in my ear that our master was being taken prisoner by the agents of the Temple. At first I thought I was having a bad dream, and it took some time for the import of his words to sink in. By then all the others, including James, had rushed from the cave and disappeared uphill in the darkness.”

Normal reaction under such conditions. Run in the opposite direction from the danger, up over the hill and down the other side toward the home in Bethany.

“And you?” I asked.