CHAPTER XXXVI.
When all was over, Joseph of Arimathea, a blunt, outspoken disciple of Jesus, went to Pilate, the Governor, to ask him that the Prophet's body might be buried that same evening.
"Have His legs been broken ?" Pilate inquired of him.
"Sir, that is not necessary.

He is dead." "I do not believe you." "It is quite true, sir.

The captain pierced his side." "I have been warned about you," said Pilate roughly.

"I shall send a guard to watch the grave." "As your lordship pleases." "The man said that He would rise from the dead on the third day.

It is likely that His friends will help Him!" Joseph drew himself up in front of the Governor and said: "Sir, what ground have you for such a suspicion?
Have we Jews proved ourselves so absolutely lawless in our fatherland?
Surely not so much so that this best of all men, this Divine Man, should have been condemned to death without a shadow of reason, and His followers, too, treated with contempt as if they were cheats and body-snatchers." "You have to thank your priests for that," said Pilate, with cold indifference.
"We know the breed," replied Joseph, "and so do you.