"What plot?" Joseph as quickly asked.
"The tombs throw not shadows while the sun yet hangs high. Methinks the man hath the plot in his own head," Martha said.
"The sun tarrieth not for the Passover rabble to finish its haggling over locusts and fish and oil. Ugh! The mob! And as I struggled for a place at the fish stand the sun passed over the mountain and left the valley grim. And lo, as I did travel, my fish and my sparrows slipped from me and to escape the hoofs and dust of a party of pilgrims I took my way behind an ancient tomb a long time used of sheep, to bind up my bundles. And no sooner had I sat me on the green than I heard a voice. Yet saw I no man. Again I heard the voice like a whisper. Then did fear lay hold of me lest the tomb be a den of ghosts and glad I was that the wall on the back was thick. Near this thick wall I put my back. Then the ghostly voice sounded nearer and I found my ear against a crack and I listened, for, though great my fear, my curiosity to hear the speech of ghosts overcame it. And when my ear lay close the voice was no longer that of a ghost but of a man who hatched a plot which another who is not a ghost listened to."
"What is the plot?" Lazarus asked again.
"That I learned not though my ears did itch."
"A plot thou hast heard—a plot that hath made thine ears itch, yet neither dost thou know the plotter nor the plot. The ears of an ass are thine."
Eli gathered up his bundles. "If the plot shall come to pass then will thy eyes drop water-jars of tears and thy head know all are not fools who carry bundles," and he turned toward the court.
"Stay," said Lazarus. "Of a plot thou knowest, yet knowest not. Of a plotter thou knowest, but knowest not. What dost thou know?"
"Little—save him they whispered against. . . Him I know, and that the one who hatched the evil did come from the Temple."
"From the Temple!" It was Joseph who spoke and his words were an exclamation.