"Will He be here?" whispered the scribes to the Pharisees. "Let Him beware!"
"Will He be here?" muttered Caiaphas the High Priest. "Then better one man should die, than that the whole community perish."
The sight that dazzled the eyes of the children that first evening of the week, was like fairyland; a blaze of lanterns and torches lit up the whole city.
In the Court of the Women, in the Temple, all the golden lamps were lit, twinkling and burning like countless stars.
On the steps that separated this court from the next one, stood three thousand singers, the sons and daughters of the tribe of Levi. Two priests stood at the top of the steps, and as each gave the signal on a great silver trumpet, the burst of song that went up from the vast choir seemed to shake the very heavens. Harps and psalters and flutes swelled with the rolling waves of the organ's melody. To the sound of this music, men marched with flaming torches in their hands, and the marching and a weird torch-dance were kept up until the gates of the Temple closed.
In the midst of all the feasting and the gayeties that followed, the long-expected Voice was heard in the arcades of the Temple.
The Child of Nazareth was once more in His Father's house about His Father's business.
On the last great day of the feast, Joel was up at day-break, ready to follow the older members of the family as soon as the first trumpet-blast should sound.
In his right hand he carried a citron, as did all the others; in his left was a palm-branch, the emblem of joy. An immense multitude gathered at the spring of Siloam. Water was drawn in a golden pitcher, and carried back to be poured on the great altar, while the choir sang with its thousands of voices, and all the people shouted, Amen and Amen!
When the days had gone by in which the seventy bullocks had been sacrificed, and when the ceremonies were all over, then the leaves were stripped from the green booths, and the people scattered to their homes.