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waiting secretary to call the Legate of the Legion and the Tribune of the cohort into the garden, also the two members of the Sanhedrin and the captain of the sky sports news presenters temple guard, who were standing grouped round the fountain on the lower terrace awaiting his call. Pilate added that he would himself shortly return to join them in the sky sports news presenters garden, and disappeared inside the palace. While the secretary convened the meeting, inside his darken-ed, shuttered room the Procurator spoke to a man whose face, sky sports news presenters despite the complete absence of sunlight from the room, remained half covered by a hood. The interview was very short. The Procurator whispered a few words to the man, who immediately departed. Pilate sky sports news presenters passed through the arcade into the garden. There in the presence of all the men he had asked to see, the Procurator solemnly and curtly repeated that sky sports news presenters he confirmed the sentence of death on Yeshua Ha-Notsri and enquired officially of the Sanhedrin members as to which of the prisoners it had pleased them to release. On being told that it was Bar-Abba, the Procurator said: Very well, and ordered the secretary to enter it in the minutes. He clutched the buckle which the secretary had picked up from the sand and announced solemnly :

It is time! At this all present set off down the broad marble staircase between the lines of rose bushes, exuding their stupefying aroma, down towards the palace wall, to a gate

leading to the smoothly paved square at whose end could be seen the columns and statues of the Jerusalem hippodrome. As soon as the group entered the square and began climbing up to the broad temporary wooden platform raised high above the square, Pilate assessed the situation through narrowed eyelids. The cleared passage that he had just crossed between the palace walls and the scaffolding platform was empty, but in front of Pilate the square could no longer be seen--it had been devoured by the crowd. The mob would have poured on to the platform and sky sports news presenters the passage too if there had not been two triple rows of soldiers, one from the Sebastian cohort on Pilates left and on his right another from the Ituraean auxiliary cohort, to keep it clear. Pilate climbed the platform, sky sports news presenters mechanically clenching and unclenching his fist on the useless buckle and frowning hard. The Procurator was not frowning because the sun was blinding him but to somehow avoid seeing sky sports news presenters the group of prisoners which, as he well knew, would shortly be led out on the platform behind him. The moment the white cloak with the blood-red lining appeared atop the stone block at the edge sky sports news presenters of that human sea a wave of sound-- Aaahh --struck the unseeing Pilates ears. It began softly, far away at the hippodrome end of the square, then grew to thunderous volume and after a few seconds, began to diminish

again. They have seen me, thought the Procurator. The wave of sound did not recede altogether and began unexpectedly to grow again and waveringly rose to a higher pitch than the first and on top of the second surge of noise, like foam on the crest of a wave at sea, could be heard whistles and the shrieks of several women audible above the sky sports news presenters roar. That means they have led them out on to the platform, thought Pilate, and those screams are from women who were crushed when the crowd surged forward. He waited for a while, knowing that nothing could silence the crowd until it had let loose its pent-up feelings and quietened of its own accord. When that moment came sky sports news presenters tlie Procurator threw up his right hand and the last murmurings of the crowd expired. Then Pilate took as deep a breath as he could of the hot air and his cracked voice rang out over sky sports news presenters the thousands of heads : In the name of imperial Caesar! . . . At once his ears were struck by a clipped, metallic chorus as the cohorts, raising lances and standards, roared out sky sports news presenters their fearful response: Hail, Caesar! Pilate jerked his head up straight at the sun. He had a sensation of green fire piercing his eyelids, his brain seemed to burn. In hoarse Aramaic he flung his words

out over the crowd : Four criminals, arrested in Jerusalem for murder, incitement to rebellion, contempt of the law and blasphemy, have been condemned to the most shameful form sky sports news presenters of execution--crucifixion! Their execution will be carried out shortly on Mount Golgotha The names of these felons are Dismas, Hestas, Bar-Abba and Ha-Notsri and there they stand before you! Pilate pointed to sky sports news presenters the right, unable to see the prisoners but knowing that they were standing where they should be. The crowd responded with a long rumble that could have been surprise or relief. When it had subsided Pilate went sky sports news presenters on : But only three of them are to be executed for, in accordance with law and custom, in honour of the great feast of Passover the emperor Caesar in his magnanimity will, at the choice