ven expression to their love by tears and fond
embraces, they left the grotto. Then the Blessed Virgin entered, seated
herself close to the head of her dear Son, and bent over his body with
many tears. When she left the grotto, Magdalen hastily and eagerly came
forward, and flung on the body some flowers and branches which she had
gathered in the garden. Then she clasped her hands together, and with
sobs kissed the feet of Jesus; but the men having informed her that
they must close the sepulchre, she returned to the other women. They
covered the sacred body with the extremities of the sheet on which it
was lying, placed on the top of all the brown coverlet, and closed the
folding-doors, which were made of a bronze-coloured metal, and had on
their front two sticks, one straight down and the other across, so as
to form a perfect cross.

The large stone with which they intended to close the sepulchre, and
which was still lying in front of the grotto, was in shape very like a
chest or tomb;19 its length was such that a man might have laid himself
down upon it, and it was so heavy that it was only by means of levers
that the men could roll it before the door of the sepulchre. The
entrance of the grotto was closed by a gate made of branches twined
together. Everything that was done within the grotto had to be
accomplished by torchlight, for daylight never penetrated there.

CHAPTER LIII.

The Return from the Sepulchre.

Joseph of Arimathea is put in Prison.

The Sabbath was close at hand, and Nicodemus and Joseph returned to
Jerusalem by a small door not far from the garden, and which Joseph had
been allowed by special favour to have made in the city wall. They told
the Blessed Virgin, Magdalen, John, and some of the women, who were
returning to Calvary to pray there, that this door, as well as that of
the super-room, would be opened to them whenever they knocked. The
elder sister of the Blessed Virgin, Mary of Heli, returned to the town
with Mary the mother of Mark, and some other women. The servants of
Nicodemus and Joseph went to Calvary to fetch several things which had
been left there.

The soldiers joined those who were guarding the city gate near
Calvary; and Cassius went to Pilate with the lance, related all that he
had seen, and promised to give him an exact account of everything that
should happen, if he would put under his command the guards whom the
Jews would not fail to ask to have put round the t