The way pointed out to him lay through the desert, and to find Banu’s cave without guidance would not be easy, and after having found and interrogated him the way would seem longer to return than to come.  But, having gone so far, he could not do else than attempt the hot weary search.  And it will be one! he said, as he picked his way through the bushes and brambles that contrive to subsist somehow in the flat sandy waste lying at the head of the lake.  But as he proceeded into the desert these signs of life vanished, and he came upon a region of craggy and intricate rocks rising sometimes into hills and sometimes breaking away and littering the plain with rubble.  The desert is never completely desert for long, and on turning westward as he was directed, Joseph caught sight of the hill which he had been told to look out for—­he could not miss it, for the evening sun lit up a high scarp, and on coming to the end of a third mile the desert began to look a little less desert, brambles began again.  Banu could not be far away.  But Joseph did not dare to go farther.  He had been walking for many hours, and even if he were to meet Banu he could not speak to him, so closely did his tongue cleave to the sides of his mouth.  But these brambles betoken water, he said; and on coming round a certain rock bulging uncouth from the hillside, he discovered a trickle, and a few paces distant, Banu, ugly as a hyena and more ridiculous than the animal, for—­having no shirt to cover his nakedness—­he had tressed a garland of leaves about his waist!  Yet not so ugly at second sight as at first, for he sees God, Joseph said to himself; and he waited for Banu to rise from his knees.

Even hither do they pursue me, Banu’s eyes seemed to say, while his fingers modestly rearranged his garland; and Joseph, who began to dread the hermit, begged to have the spring pointed out to him that he might drink.  Banu pointed to it, and Joseph knelt and drank, and after drinking he was in better humour to tell Banu that Mathias, the great philosopher from Alexandria, scorned the prophecies that the end of the world could not be delayed much longer.  And, as John is not baptizing these days, I thought I’d come and ask if we had better begin to prepare for the resurrection and the judgment.  On hearing Joseph’s reasons for his visit, the hermit stood with dilated eyes, as if about to speak.  But he did not speak; and Joseph asked him what would become of the world after God destroyed it.  Before answering, Banu stooped down, and having filled his hand with sand and gravel he said:  God will fill his hand with earth, but not this time to make a man and woman, but out of each of his hands will come a full nation, and these he will put into full possession of the earth, for his chosen people will not repent....