It was the season of the Passover. The city was thronged
with strangers. The children of Israel, scattered in far lands,
had returned to the Temple for the great feast, and there had
been a confusion of tongues in the narrow streets for many days.

But on this day a singular agitation was visible in the
multitude. The sky was veiled with a portentous gloom.
Currents of excitement seemed to flash through the crowd. A
secret tide was sweeping them all one way. The clatter of
sandals and the soft, thick sound of thousands of bare feet
shuffling over the stones, flowed unceasingly along the street
that leads to the Damascus gate.

Artaban joined a group of people from his own country,
Parthian Jews who had come up to keep the Passover, and
inquired of them the cause of the tumult, and where they were
going.

"We are going," they answered, "to the place called
Golgotha, outside the city walls, where there is to be an
execution. Have you not heard what has happened? Two famous
robbers are to be crucified, and with them another, called
Jesus of Nazareth, a man who has done many wonderful works
among the people, so that they love him greatly. But the priests
and elders have said that he must die, because he gave himself
out to be the Son of God. And Pilate has sent him to the cross
because he said that he was the `King of the Jews.'

How strangely these familiar words fell upon the tired
heart of Artaban! They had led him for a lifetime over land