“My suggestion was accepted, such as it was. We took blankets and hid in the woods behind the house while the two women watched the road from their front windows. If any torches or lanterns were seen approaching in number from the city, they were to hang an oil lamp in a rear window as a signal for us to flee. The night passed quietly, however.”

“And when morning came?”

“By then we were exhausted from lack of sleep. There was some talk about making an attempt to get back into the city to warn the women at the house of the widow, but none had either the courage or the strength to undertake such a venture and risk being captured by patrols—not even the three whose mothers were there. Martha, I remember, brought us some bread and cheese soon after daybreak, and we arranged a daytime signal of bleached cloth, hung from the window, should she or Mary see any approaching soldiers.”

This was it! Now I would know. “How long did all of you remain in hiding in the woods?”

“For more than two days—until the sixth hour, or thereabouts, on the day following our Sabbath.”

“All nine of you? No one left the woods, for any reason, even for a little while?”

If he was lying he was doing a superb job of it. He looked directly into my eyes and waved his hands helplessly. “Where would we go? What could we do? Rescue Jesus and the others from the high priest and his guards? Or from Pilate and his thousand armed legionaries? Us? Nine cowards with one dagger among us? Nine sheep who had been sheared of their faith and fled in the night just as Jesus said we would when the shepherd was struck down?”

“Then none of you knew that Jesus had been tried and found guilty of sedition and crucified and buried in the tomb of Joseph and that Peter and John were still free? Bethany is only a short distance from Jerusalem. How could such terrible news not have reached you?”

“Jesus died on the cross while most of the city was preparing for the Sabbath, which was to commence at sundown. On the Sabbath there is little or no traffic on any roads. Word of what had happened did not begin to spread throughout the land until that first day after our holy day of worship.”

Easter Sunday!

“How did you and the others finally learn of the execution?”