Peter trailed along with the hangers-on to the council quarters of the Sanhedrin, where they formally condemned Jesus. He heard most of what transpired and caught a glimpse of John, and even Matthew, in the crowd!

He dragged his weary feet through the streets when they took Jesus, bound and beaten, to Pilate. He followed when Pilate, after two lengthy talks with Jesus in private, had the captors half drag, half carry Jesus to Herod's palace.

When they came back out of Herod's quarters, Jesus was attired in one of the king's own cast-off purple robes, and they had untied Him.

They surged along through the streets, now lighter with the dawn of a new day, and led Him back to Pilate's residence again. The mob had grown with daylight; there were more than a thousand people milling about now, which in one way made Peter feel a little better, for it was easier to lose oneself in the crowd. He was staying away from the armed guard, for he didn't wish any of the men who had stared at him to see him again.

A great tumult was taking place in the courtyard below Pilate's balcony when Peter rounded the corner with the tail end of the crowd. A chant had been set up. They were screaming, "Crucify Him! Crucify Him! Crucify Him! "

At length, the doors opened onto the balcony and Pilate appeared. The mob fell silent, and Pilate made as if to return, but instead gestured behind him.

What Peter saw then would remain emblazoned across his mind for the rest of his life. Two soldiers dragged a hideously deformed Man, one eye swollen completely shut, lips shredded, a piece of scalp hanging reddishly over one brow, out onto the balcony. It was Jesus!

A loud argument ensued between Pilate and the crowd.

Beckoning for silence, Pilate said to them, "I can find no fault in this Man, and I prefer to release Him!"

Peter's heart leapt!

If they would just let Him go, if He could have Pilate's protection, Peter and the others could take Him quickly to Mary's in Bethany and tend to His wounds. He would heal in time. Perhaps He could be miraculously healed, even heal Himself!

But the crowd was screaming out, "If you release this Man, you are no friend to Caesar! You would be disloyal to Caesar himself! "Pilate brought Jesus out and then, assisted by the big Roman guards, took Him to the raised area in the midst of the square called "The Pavement," or "Gabbatha. " The crowd was silent for a time, as Jesus' faltering footsteps failed to carry His weight now and then.

Peter gasped at the sight of Him!

Why, they must have used a Roman scourge on Him! His robe was plastered to His back, soaked with blood! There were terrible, livid stripes on His neck, shoulders and arms. His legs were bloody and scarred. Spittle glistened from His hair and His beard, and blood slowly dripped from His nose and congealed in His ears and face.

It was now about six a.m., Peter judged. And he waited, shaking with fear and cold, his reddish eyes incredulous, his senses, though drugged with exhaustion, sharpened to some higher degree. Everything seemed in sharper focus: the colors brighter, the noise louder, the tiniest details standing out sharp and clear, especially Jesus' horrible wounds.

It was a miracle He yet lived!

The tumult began again, and the crowd, now more than two thousand strong, chanted over and over, "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!"

An argument ensued between the leading Jews and Pilate. The high priest and members of the Sanhedrin were there, as were some of the temple scribes, civic leaders, temple officers and armed guards.

Finally, Pilate called out to a servant, and moments later two maids brought a large basin to Pilate. He beckoned for silence again, and the crowd fell silent, expecting some dramatic moment.

Pilate dipped both hands in the basin and, rubbing them together, began washing. He raised dripping hands several times, saying loudly, "I am entirely innocent of the blood of this righteous Man! It's your decision, not mine, so see you to it!"

At this, one of the leaders screamed out, "Let His blood be on us! And let His blood be on our children! "

"Let His blood be on us! " hundreds more took up the saying. "And let His blood be on our children," chanted more than a thousand!

Peter was shocked.

Was there no reprieve? Only moments before it had appeared Pilate might actually let Him go. Now he was plainly absolving himself of any responsibility, and claiming the Romans wouldn't interfere with Jewish justice! He had said Christ was "innocent" and "righteous," but it made no difference to the frenzied mob.

Peter stared in disbelief at the people. Many of them he recognized, for he had peered at their upturned faces often enough. Why, many of these same men and women had sat, enraptured, listening to Jesus teach in the temple! Many of them had said they "believed on Him!"

Peter wanted to bellow with rage and take on the whole mob! He grasped his sword until his big hand ached, but did nothing, feeling completely helpless.

Pilate turned and made his way back into the palace, and the soldiers took a staff and began cruelly beating Jesus on the head, jamming a false crown of thorns into His scalp, pretending He was a king.

And here came some soldiers, bearing a large stake.

Behind them came several more soldiers, dragging along two prisoners, whose leg chains clanked as they were pulled over the rough stones. Both had been terribly beaten, and two more large stakes were brought up and laid over their backs.

The procession began then, headed for the main street. The whole city was alive with sound and violence. Throngs were lining each main intersection, and the whole of the main street to the main gate. Thousands of them were here, from all parts of the world. There were Jews from Crete, Arabia, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and from Dacia and beyond. There were proselytes from Persia, and Libya, and from Greece and Rome.

The soldiers kept shouting ahead, and a large armed guard cleared the way along the street. And here came a staggering figure, back bent under the weight of the large tree they had prepared, dragging it along the street behind Him

As He walked, a guard would lash out and hit Him across the side, or around the legs with a whip. He would stumble, cry out with pain and fall flat under the stake, only to be jerked back to unsteady feet and pushed into motion again.

Behind Him, two men staggered under the weights of their stakes, progressing slowly through the screaming, jeering, laughing crowds.

Peter found tears coursing down his head, and saw others in the crowd crying.

As the procession drew nearer Peter's perch along a low wall, he saw a group of several women crying loudly. Jesus stumbled and fell near them, and, as the Romans pushed Him into motion again, He said, in a surprisingly strong voice, through split and torn lips, "Daughters of Jerusalem! Don't weep for Me—weep for yourselves, and for your children! Behold, the days come in which they will say , 'Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bear, and the breasts that never give suck!"

"Then they will begin to mourn and say to the mountains, 'Fall on us and cover us,' for if they do things like this in the time of the green tree, what will be done in the dry?

With a curse and a shove, one of the Romans pushed Jesus into motion again, and, staggering, He continued along, around the corner past Peter's view.

Peter climbed down and, managing to fight his way out of the throngs, headed down a side street, where he began to run to head off the grisly column again, nearer the main gate. When would Jesus do something? His mind raged.

He found a way to the road of the roofs alongside a large home and leapt up the outside stairway, gaining the parapet. Finally he detected by the noise where the column was and peered over.

He was in time to see Jesus lying on the street, the heavy beam having rolled off His back, pinioning one arm in the dust. Jesus was terribly bloody, the dirt sticking to His body. The soldiers lifted the big stake.

One of them turned and, seeing an obviously well-to-do man in the crowd, grabbed him and dragged him over to the prostrate figure in the dust.

Peter recognized the man, for he was well known. He was Simon of Cyrene, a sage and an elder in Israel. He was the father of Alexander and Rufus, who were both known as men of stature.

Two of the soldiers picked up Jesus and began half dragging Him along through the streets again. Simon followed, bearing the heavy stake across his old, stooped back, screaming out when a vicious Roman dealt him a blow with a whip.

It was the ultimate day for the Romans now. Their "hour of darkness" was indeed here. These illiterate beasts in army uniform were heaping their scorn and abuse on the Jews by taking an elder such as Simon right out of the crowd and forcing him to carry Jesus' stake!

Peter sobbed aloud, frantic with fear for Jesus, and flung himself back along the rooftops to the stairs he had mounted earlier, descending rapidly, and then ran to reach the main gate.

He arrived as the procession left the gate, turned to its left and began traversing a rocky, stony area that was used for animal auctions and where herdsmen gathered their flocks.

There was a garden beneath that bluff over there, Peter remembered, with several tombs in it, sheltered in the solid rock of the bluff, which leered at Peter with its hollowed caves, that made it look like a sad, forbidding skull.

It was known as "the place of the skull" to the people. "Golgotha," they called it.

The Romans knew where they were going, to the very top of this limestone outcropping, right up to the grassy knoll above the grinning face of the caves and the tombs, where the crosses would be seen for a great distance, and where no one could approach without climbing one of the steep paths.

Peter followed as close as he dared.

A low wail escaped the rear ranks of the crowd, toiling along behind the large procession that had gained the heights, and Peter's startled view saw first one, and then another, and then a third grisly shape being hoisted into the air by the soldiers. They had fastened the hands of the men, including Jesus, to the cross pieces, and were slowly hoisting them to the top of the stakes, which had been planted in their deep holes that had been dug.

There was an inscription atop Jesus' stake, Peter saw, and the people were all exclaiming about it. Several women were keening aloud, weeping and wailing, and a number of men were crying too.

It was growing darker now, with lowering clouds forming a darkening overcast, and the light of the sun barely filtering through.

Here came a loudly complaining delegation from the high priests, arguing among themselves over the inscription and saying they would take it directly to Pilate! Peter watched them pass, again averting his gaze lest he be singled out from among the crowd.

He edged nearer and saw they had printed on the plank: "This is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews."

Peter was weeping with the agony of the moment. Jesus was surely dead or dying. The form on the stake was naked now, for the soldiers had reached up and torn his garment from Him before hoisting Him aloft, and nailing His feet to the stake. Peter recognized the robe, for it was seamless and made of the finest wool and beautifully done. The soldiers were guarding the site, gesturing now and then at some in the crowd who came too close.

Peter kept working his way closer, through the crying, jeering, screaming, taunting crowd. Some were crying as if they would never stop, and others taunted them and hurled epithets at the form on the stake, saying, "Hey there! You! You 'Son of God' up there on the stake that claimed You could destroy our temple and build it again in just three days!"

"Yeah!" taunted another, turning with a big grin to his fellows! "If You're the 'Son of God,' then why don't You just climb back down from there right now?" The others guffawed at this, and Peter choked on the sobs of rage, pain, disbelief and sympathy for Jesus that wracked his big fisherman's body.

Peter noticed several women in the crowd, over there near the foot of the stake that pinioned Jesus. There was John! Peter edged closer. It was Mary, Jesus' mother, and there was her sister, Mary, who was Cleopas' wife, and Mary Magdalene.

They, like hundreds of others, were looking upward with terrible anxiety, tears coursing down their dust-streaked faces as they stared, transfixed, at the disfigured, purpled, bloody, swollen, beaten, almost unrecognizable figure up there above them hanging on a cross.

Peter didn't know how the women could stand it, how they managed to keep from swooning away in a dead faint!

Just then the figure stiffed, and all in the crowd fell silent, some who had been tormenting Him with their jibes expecting He might have some weak retort. The one eye blinked and peered narrowly; the other was totally closed and swollen. The purpled, shredded, swollen lips parted a little, and muffled sounds came from the bloodied mouth. Blood dripped from the nostrils and from both ears. Reddish drops coursed down over His belly and legs, and livid welts showed where they had struck out, even at His manhood, now exposed.

Peter heard the sounds, but he doubted if Jesus saw him, standing in a crush of people nearby. Jesus was speaking to John and Mary. He said through broken lips, "Woman, behold your son!" indicating John with His glance, the one eye shifting to him.

"Behold, your mother!" He said to John, staring at him, hoping to convey as much meaning as He could, as if the effort of saying anything pained Him terribly.

Several muttered about the light; it was fading fast. Peter was in the depths of the greatest agony of his life, paying no attention to anything but that hideously tragic figure up there, almost feeling the cruel pains that must be torturing Jesus' body, as he stared at the wounds and at the way they had driven big spikes through His hands and through His feet.

"Crucified!" Peter said. His stomach turning in revulsion, unable to accept what his own eyes told him. "They actually crucified Him!"

Others were taking up chants against Him again, and Peter saw the soldiers sitting around the bases of the three crosses were gambling over Jesus' clothing! The filthy brutes were so heartless they were actually stopping to play with some colored stones one of them carried, thinking to decide by gambling who got the robe!

Several exclaimed about the clouds, for they were lowering, and it was growing very dark. Anxious faces peered upward, and Peter saw the soldiers get back to their feet and, fixing torch holders in the ground, light torches around the crosses to give off feeble light against the darkening day.

Peter didn't remember a much darker sky, not even in some of the very worst of the storms that had turned the Sea of Tiberius, as some called his Galilee, into a raging ocean of huge waves. Low and dark, yes, but not this dark! It was as if it was very late evening now, and yet it was only about one hour after noon on this fourteenth of Nisan.

Peter stayed back in the crowd as the soldiers were busy arranging the torches. Many of the people were beginning to drift away while dozens toiled out of the city and up the hill to see.

It was growing darker still. It wouldn't be long until the Passover ceremony, Peter thought with a start.

He had been awake now since those moments when he nodded off, back there in the Garden of Gethsamene. It seemed like a month ago, and the thoughts of those moments tortured Peter's conscience. If only he had stayed awake. If only they had been watching.

But was it really his fault?

His thoughts raged this way and that, as he stared, hopelessly, at the emaciated figure up there on that cross. Peter hung his big head and sobbed deep in his heart again, seeing everything he had lived for, worked for, prayed for, sacrificed for, everything in which he had believed, all the hopes and dreams of a new Israel, of a great kingdom stretching in the purple distance, across this land and far beyond to Persia, Egypt and Rome, the hopes and dreams of centuries and the promise of a great Messiah, a leader to restore their beloved Israel, their self-respect as a people, their commerce and their industry, their culture and their religion, to an end. Jesus had been that Man, Peter was positive. And yet, yet . . . there He was up there, apparently dead, or very near death. Apparently His mysterious powers were really broken!

Was He like Sampson? Had they discovered some flaw in His strength?

Where, now, were the powers that had healed the blind, calmed the waves and wind, changed water into wine and raised Lazarus? Peter wanted to scream out with the others, not in a jeer, but in a frantic, urgent cheer to Jesus, urging Him on to victory, to overcome this blackest of all moments! He wanted to say, "Lord, come down from there! You can do it!"

Peter couldn't stand it any more. He stumbled away through the crowd, thinking to find some of the other disciples if he could, and seek some solace, some understanding, in the company of his friends. He was afraid to go too near John and the three women just now, and he wondered at John's boldness.

It was as dark as if the sun had been down for an hour, and Peter found the streets of the city alive with noisy, fearful, chattering people. Some were returning from Golgotha and exclaiming to others about what they had seen. Some were slowly working their way toward the temple, and here and there families carried or drove their unblemished lambs, intent on fulfilling the ancient sacrifice of the Passover, taking them to the court, for the high priest's first ceremonial slaughter. Others were hurrying out of the city, wanting to see the spectacle atop Golgotha for themselves.

He found Joseph's house and discovered several of the others hiding there. He related to them in hushed, broken, defeated tones what had happened. Several of the disciples had not known until now of Jesus' beating, and the terrible, tortuous trail through the city, or of the fact that He had been crucified.

They couldn't believe it! Some cried, and others shouted that it couldn't be true. Surely the Sanhedrin would never have turned Him over to the Romans.

"A couple of them said, without conviction, that they ought to go up there and rescue Him.

Peter took two of them with him and decided to go back out of the city and up the hill; he couldn't watch, and he couldn't stay away. People were quieter now, and speaking in awed tones, wondering at the unusual weather.

Distant lightning crackled, and minutes later an ominous, throaty rumble of thunder rippled mutteringly in the distance, like a great, powerful Being complaining to the earth below. The thin white pencil of light danced, flickered and knifed to the ground miles away, and the clouds reflected its whitish flash, while the second long, somnolent, complaining rumble came to them with its bass voice.

They gained the outer edges of the crowd just before the third hour after midday, and it was dark as midnight now! It was some kind of sign, Peter was convinced!

Hoping against hope, disbelieving and hurt, yet still clinging to that one chance in ten thousand, Peter wondered if Jesus was calling out to His Father, and if a great army of angels would appear, if Jesus would be released and healed instantly, and if all the detractors, persecutors, tormentors and murderers would be instantly seized!

It was only moments away from the ceremony of the Passover in the temple court, the same high priest that had condemned Jesus, Caiaphas, would be preparing the ceremonial knife, and the servants would be ready with their basins to catch the blood. Nothing, not even this history-breaking darkness and these black, black clouds and the thunder and flashing lightning could interrupt this ancient ceremony.

At their arrival, Peter and the others were shocked to see a Roman soldier hoisting the butt of his spear toward Jesus' mouth with a sponge on it. He pressed it to Jesus' lips, and Peter heard someone say, "They're giving Him vinegar. He probably asked for water!"

Some laughed at this, chuckling at the cruel joke.

Peter nearly collapsed then, when, with a derisive laugh, the soldier suddenly reversed his spear, shook off the sponge and, holding the lance tip poised in both hands, casting yellowish reflections from the many torches encircling the brutal scene, jammed the spear into Jesus' side!

"Oh, no! no! no!" Peter found himself screaming! "Don't do that—don't do that—!"

But it was too late!

Jesus screamed out in pain, and His head arched backward, hitting the stake with a solid thunk Peter could hear. The limbs strained upward momentarily, quivering and trembling, the muscles spasmodically jerking, and Peter heard the shredded lips say, "Father, I commend My Spirit into Your hands!"

The muscles relaxed then, and the head lolled forward on the beaten chest, blood dripping darkly from the beard. A great stream of bubbling stomach fluids and blood stained His side, and coursed down his leg to stain the stake and form a slowly spreading pool on the ground. The body became ashen gray, paling as if turning bluish in the flickering lamplight.

Little did Peter know that at this precise instant Caiaphas' hand descended in a swift arc as he slit the throat of the first sacrificial lamb of this Passover season!

At that moment, like the distant thunder was suddenly right beneath them, Peter felt a sickening, dizzying sensation! The three stakes trembled, swaying slightly, and many people fell to the ground or clutched each other.

A deep, subterranean noise, like a low, muttering, complaining rumble, roared through the ground, and Peter's startled eyes saw the buildings in the city swaying lightly, dust rising everywhere. Like steam or geysers, spurts of dust flew into the air.

The earth cracked, and the streets and pathways buckled!

Parapets sent showers of tiles into the streets, and frantic people screamed, dodging the deadly missiles hurtling down from above them.

The Roman soldiers grabbed up shields and swords, and knelt on the ground, facing outward, their shields before them in defense, and looked at one another, eyes wide with fear.

Then it began to rain.

The rain came in sheets—gusts whipping it onward, blinding, pelting, stinging rain.

Peter's awed gaze saw the reddish blood being washed from Jesus' hair, the pinkish hues running freely, and the rain lashing at the exposed bodies on the stakes.

One of the Romans said in his own tongue fearfully, "Surely this must have been the Son of God!"

Peter's scalp prickled. His heart was breaking, and he was dumbstruck!

Jesus was dead. They had done it! They had actually killed Him; the kindest, gentlest, wisest, best. He sobbed anew, big shoulders shaking with grief as he knelt there with the world insane around him. The earth shook, the rain hissed down in a roar, and lightning crashed, filling the air with a sulfuric, acrid odor and deafening Peter's ears.

Women were wailing, men were crying, children screamed, and even the soldiers were yelling at the top of their lungs.

But gradually the rain grew less, and the sickening motion of the earth stopped. The clouds began to take on a slightly grayish hue, and the terrible blackness began to abate.

The people nearest Peter and the other two were getting to their feet, and cries came from the city, where injured people were lying.

A frantic man came running to tell his friends that a tomb had been completely unearthed, and, as the rain cleansed it of the dust of years, the big stone lid of the sarcophagus had lifted and the man had seen a body. It had stood up and stepped out of the tomb!

"I saw a dead man—walking!" he screamed. His friends quieted him, telling him it couldn't have been true. Perhaps someone had just been sleeping in an unusual place, or maybe he had seen a vision.

"There are very strange things happening this day," said one, trying to calm him.

Peter, his clothes plastered to his body and water dripping in a steady stream from his hair and beard, grabbed Bartholomew's shoulder and growled at him that they had better get back to Joseph's house; there was nothing further they could do here.

The skies were lighter now as Peter and the others toiled back along the slippery pathway, whose center had turned into a muddy brook. He glanced backward now and then, unable to avoid it, Jesus' dead figure looking so totally alone and forlorn. It grew smaller and smaller until, as he turned into the gate, the bodies were only indistinct shapes up there among the blackened ring of torches that had been extinguished by the downpour.

When they got to Joseph's house, it was to find Nicodemus and several of his servants there talking with Joseph and others.

They were going to get permission to prepare the body for burial. Nicodemus thought he could do it, even though he knew the Romans had been instructed to keep a guard over the body and the tomb.

Later here came John, Mary, Jesus' mother, Mary Magdalene, even Zebedee's wife was here, James and John's mother.

Peter listened to them talking of burial while they were hanging dripping garments up to dry, drying their hair and faces—and he couldn't take any more. He sent a servant to the wineskin, took it gratefully and mounted the stairs to a rear sleeping room. There he put back his big head and drank deeply, and then, getting out of his wet clothes and lying down, tried to sort out the stupefying thoughts that assailed his mind.

Like the reliving of a fight, Peter's thoughts kept singling out various parts of these past tumultuous hours until at last, in a torpor of confused thoughts and revolting stomach, the effects of the wine sent him into troubled, exhausted sleep.