require, Joseph answered.  Our mule! cried the proselytes; all property is held in common.  Even the fact of my mule having become common property, Joseph said, will not enable him to carry more than his customary burden, and the goods will embarrass me.  If the mule belongs to the community, then I am the mule driver, the provider of the community.  Constituted such by thy knowledge of the aptitudes and temper and strength of the animal! cried a proselyte after him, and he went away to seek out one of the curators; for it is not permissible for an Essene to go to Jericho without having gotten permission.  Of course the permission was at once granted, and while saddling his mule for the journey the memory of the river overnight now caused Joseph to hesitate and to think that he might find himself return empty-handed to the plump of proselytes now waiting to see him start.

But if thou crossed the river yesterday, there is no reason why thou shouldn’t cross it in safety now, cried one.  But forget not the basket of eggs, said a second.  Nor the honey, mentioned a third, and a fourth called after him the quality of lentils he enjoyed.  The mind of the fifth regarding food was not expressed, for a curator came by and reproved them, saying they were mere belly-worshippers.

There will be less water in the river than there was overnight, the curator said, and Joseph hoped he was right, for it would be a harsh and disagreeable death to drown in a lake so salt that fish could not live in it.  True, one would escape being eaten by fishes; but if the mule be carried away, he said to himself, drown I shall, long before I reach the lake, unless indeed I strike out and swim—­which, it seemed to him, might be the best way to save his life—­and if there be no current in the lake I can gain the shore easily.  But the first sight of the river proved the vanity of his foreboding, for during the night it had emptied a great part of its flood into the lake.  The struggle in getting his mule across was slight; still slighter when he returned with a sack of lentils, a basket of eggs, some pounds of honey and many misgivings as to whether he should announce this last commodity to the curator or introduce it surreptitiously.  To begin his probationship with a surreptitious act would disgrace him in the eyes of the prior, whose good opinion he valued above all.  So did his thoughts run on till he came within sight of a curator, who told him that sometimes, on the first day of probationship, honey and figs were allowed.

The cooking of the food and the eating of it in the only cabin in which there were conveniences for eating helped the time away, and Joseph began to ask himself how long his cloistral life was going to endure, for he seemed to have lost all desire to leave it, and had begun to turn the different crafts over in his mind and to debate which he should choose to put his hand to.  Of husbandry he was as ignorant as a crow, nor could he tell poisonous pastures from wholesome, nor could he help in the bakery.  At first venture there seemed to be no craft for him to follow, since fish did not thrive in the Salt Lake and the fisherman’s art could not be practised, he was told, in the Jordan, for the Essenes were not permitted to kill any living thing.