So it happened that as the group from Bethany stood for a moment midway of the marble steps to look forward to the shining altar and backward at the surging crowd, some one lifted the skirt of Mary. "What meanest thou," she exclaimed, turning to face a Temple guard. "He hath lifted my skirt," was her angry explanation as her brother and the Rabbi turned to the offender.
"Not of purpose did I, but from the press of the crowd," was his answer.
"Nay, with thy hands didst thou do it. I felt the touch of thy fingers."
Leaving Lazarus and Joel to have words over the matter, the Rabbi moved quickly a step higher and cast his eyes across the moving throng to the outskirts where he saw a thick-set man who wore a royal blue cloak and gold embroidered head-dress, standing above the others, and looking with fixed and eager eye at the group on the steps. Suddenly he became nervous, moved his body as if some discomfiture had come upon him and then turned his head slowly. The next instant he met the eyes of the Rabbi. As if he had been struck, he moved down from his foot-stone. "By the strength of my beard!" he exclaimed. "Didst thou see the face of that Rabbi? Nay? Such eyes he hath as looketh a hole into the inward parts of a man. Of a certainty will he know me again—and I him. Come, let us lose ourselves in this vast assemblage and yet go under the Gate of Nicantor. I would learn if this is the Rabbi who was with the woman."
For some time Zador Ben Amon and the Temple lawyer moved with the crowd. Now and then they caught sight of the Bethany party and Zador made comment. "She walketh by her brother," he first said. Then, "Now she is with the Rabbi," and again, "Now she is with both of them. Yet I can not determine what I would from this place. Let us go to the East Gate that openeth on to the Bethany road. There the way is narrow and as they turn toward home the Rabbi will walk with the woman, if this is their choice."
The last stall on the narrow street toward the East Gate was that of a pottery molder and baker of small ovens. Outside his door, which was now securely barred, stood several large water-jars and behind them a low table used for mixing clay. When Zador and his companion reached this place they stopped and withdrew into the shadows. "The moon is rising. They will not be long coming," he said. "Whether the Rabbi is with the brother or the woman, this is the question."
"Thou dost not know him?"
"Nay, nor care I to know a man with eyes like the Great Lights—unless he is crossing my path with the woman."
"By the hair that lieth upon his shoulders and the staff in his hand he looketh like the Galilean Rabbi that hath been teaching in the Temple."
"A Galilean Rabbi? When did this Province of diggers in dirt and gutters of fish send forth Rabbis? Thou makest a jest."