The last of this chatter that came to Joseph’s ears was that Jesus could do as much with sheep as any man since Abraham, and—­satisfied with this knowledge—­he took his leave of the shepherds, certain that Jesus must have been among the Essenes for many years before God called to him to leave his dogs and to follow John, whom he began to recognise as greater than himself, but whom he was destined to supersede, as John’s own disciple, Banu, testified in the desert before Joseph’s own eyes.  He remembered how Banu saw John in a vision plunging Jesus into Jordan.  Of trickery and cozenage there was none:  for the men along these banks bore witness to the baptism that Joseph would have seen for himself if he had started a little earlier; nor could the Jesus who came to John for baptism be other than the young shepherd whom Joseph had seen, at the beginning of his novitiate, walking with the president in deep converse; the president apparently trying to dissuade him from some project.  Joseph could not remember having heard anyone speak so familiarly or so authoritatively to the president, a man some twenty years older; and he wondered at the time how a mere shepherd from the hills could talk on an equality, as if they were friends, with the president.  The shepherd, he now heard, was an Essene, but he lived among the hills, and Joseph remembered the striped shirt, the sheepskin and the long stride.  His memory continued to unfold, and he recalled with singular distinctness and pleasure the fine broad brow curving upwards—­a noble arch, he said to himself—­the eyes distant as stars and the underlying sadness in his voice oftentimes soft and low, but with a cry in it; and he remembered how their eyes met, and it seemed to Joseph that he read in the shepherd’s eyes a look of recognition and amity.

And now, as he walked from the Jordan to the cenoby, he remembered how, all one night after that meeting, dreams of a mutual destiny plagued him:  how he slept and was awakened by visions that fled from his mind as he strove to recall them.  But was this young shepherd the one that Banu saw John baptize in the Jordan?  It cannot be else, he said to himself.  But whither was Jesus gone?  Did the brethren know, and if they did know would they tell him?  It was against the rule to put questions:  only the president could tell him, and he dared not go to the president.  Yet consult somebody he must; and a few days afterwards he got leave again to visit Banu, whom he found lying in his cave, sick:  not very sick; though having eaten nothing for nearly two days he begged Joseph to fetch him a little water from the rock; which Joseph did.  After having drunk a little the hermit seemed to revive, and Joseph related how he missed Jesus on the bank and had no tidings of him except that he was gone into the desert to meditate.  But the desert is large, and I know not which side of the lake he has chosen.  To which Banu answered:  John is baptizing in the Jordan;