The priests then departed, crying as they went, "God deliver us soon from our enemy."
When the council had been dismissed and all was still, Judas, moving as one distracted, came down the street in front of the high priest's palace; as he went he muttered to himself: "Fearful forebodings drive me hither and thither. That word of Annas' 'He must die!' Oh, that word pursues me everywhere." Then, as if he remembered all that had happened, Judas cried, "No, it cannot come to that; they will not carry things so far! That would be too terrible if my Master—no!—and I—guilty of it? No! Here in the house of Caiaphas, I will inquire how things stand. Shall I go in? I can no longer bear this uncertainty, and it terrifies me to ascertain the certainty. My heart throbs with terror—surely I shall not have to hear the worst. Yet it must come some time." And thereupon he went into the house of the high priest.
Meanwhile in the hall of Caiaphas the Temple Watch was standing waiting the result of the examination of Jesus before Caiaphas. In the hall were the servant maids, Sarah and Hagar, who seeing the soldiers standing outside, went to the door, and said, "You may come in here." It was Hagar who spoke first, and Sarah added, "It is more comfortable in here."
"True for you, good people," said Melchi, one of the soldiers. Then calling out, "Ho, comrades, come in! It is better for us to lie down in the hall."
Then said a soldier named Arphaxad, "I like this; I wish we had come in long ago; how stupid we are, always standing outside in the open air and shivering. But where is there any fire?"
"Sarah," added another soldier, "go and bring us fire, also wood to lay thereon."
"Willingly," said Hagar.
"That you shall have," said Sarah. They went out together to comply with the soldier's wish.
"Will the trial soon come to an end?" asked several of the soldiers.
"It will last," said Melchi, "until all the witnesses are examined."