about three o'clock
But will he , Nicodemus returned , be able to save him from the priests ? Nicodemus invited Joseph to follow Jesus , saying that at a safe distance he would like to see him ride through the gates into the city ; but Joseph , sorely troubled in his mind , could not answer him , and an hour later was hastening along the Jericho road , praying all the while that he might be given strength to keep the promise he had given to his father . But no sooner was he in Jericho than he began to feel ashamed of himself , and after resisting the impulse to return to Jesus for two days he yielded to it , and returned obediently the way he had come , uncertain whether shame of his cowardice or love was bringing him back . One or the other it must be , he said , as he came round the bend in the road into Bethany ; and it was soon after passing through that village , somewhere about three o'clock , that he met his masons coming from Mount Scropas . Coming from my tomb , he said to himself , and , reining up his horse and speaking to them , he heard that his tomb was finished . We 've chiselled a great stone to be rolled into the doorway , he heard one of the masons say ; another uttered vauntingly that the stone closed the tomb perfectly , and Joseph was about to press his horse forward when the men called after him , and , gathering about his stirrup , they related that Jesus of Nazareth had been tried and condemned by Pilate that morning , and was now hanging on a cross , a-top of Golgotha , one of the masons said : you can see him yourself , Master , if you be going that way , and between two thieves . One of them was to have been Jesus Bar-Abba , but the people cried out that he was to be released instead of Jesus .