He lifted me on to his shoulder and carried me up a little twisting path to his house, and an old woman, named Esora, attended to my wounds with balsam, and when they were cured Joseph began to tell me that my stay in his house was dangerous to him and to me, and he vaunted to me in turn Caesarea and Antioch as cities in which I should be safe from the Jews.  But my mind was so weak and shaken that his reasons faded from my mind and I sat smiling at the sunlight like one bereft of sense.  Strive as he might, he could not awaken me from the lethargy in which I was sunken, and every day and every week increased his danger and mine; and it was not till the news came that my old comrades had come to live in the Brook Kerith that my mind began to awaken and to move towards a resolution; an outline began to appear, when I said, I have led my sheep over the hills yonder many a time, and tempted me to speak of you till the desire arose in me to see you again.  You remember our arrival one morning at daybreak and my eagerness to see the flock.

Brother Amos was glad to see me back again, and in talking of the flock Joseph was almost forgotten, which shows how wandering my mind was at the time....  He left without seeing me, but not without warning Hazael not to question me else my mind might yield to the strain, saying that it hung on a thread, which was true, and I remember how for many a year every cliff’s edge tempted me to jump over.  Joseph was gone for ever, and the memory of my sins were as tongues of flame that leaped by turns out of the ashes.  But the fiercest ashes grow cold in time; we turn them over without fear of flame, and last night I said to Hazael as we sat together, there is a sin in my life that none knows of, it is buried fathoms deep out of all sight of men, and Hazael having said there was little of the world’s time in front of him, I felt suddenly I could not conceal from him any longer the sin that Joseph had not dared to tell him—­that I had once believed myself to be a precursor of the Messiah like many that came before me, but unlike any other I began to believe myself to be the incarnate word.

A soft, vague sound, the gurgle of the brook, rose out of the stillness, as it flowed down the gorge from cavern to cavern.

After a little while Hazael called to Manahem and bade him relate to Jesus the story Paul had told them, and when Jesus had heard the story he was overtaken with a great pity for Paul.  But thinkest that he will believe thee?  Hazael asked, lifting his chin out of his beard, and the calm of Jesus’ face was troubled by the question and he sank upon a stool close by Hazael’s chair.  What may we do? he muttered, and the Essenes withdrew, for they guessed that the elders had serious words to speak together.