heaven?  But what ails thee, my son?  What ails thee?  He came from the cenoby on the eastern shores of the Jordan?  Joseph continued; and has been here nearly two years?  He received baptism from John in the Jordan?  Isn’t that so, Father?  I know naught of his baptism, Dan answered, but he’ll fall into trouble.  I was with Banu, Joseph said, when the hermit saw him in a vision receiving baptism from John; but though I ran, I was too late, and ever since have sought Jesus, in Egypt and afterwards among the hills of Judea.  I can’t tell thee more at present, but would go out into the garden or perhaps wander by myself for a little while under the cliffs by the lake.  Thou’lt forgive me this sudden absence, Father?

Dan put down his glass of sherbet and looked after his son.  He had been so happy for a little while, and now unhappiness was by again.

CHAP.  XI.

The dogs barked as he unlocked the gate, but a few words quieted them (they still remembered his voice) and he crept upstairs to his room, weary in body and sore of foot, for he had come a long way, having accompanied Jesus, whom he had met under the cliffs abutting the lake, to the little pathway cut in the shoulder of the hill that leads to Capernaum.  He had not recognised him as he passed, which was not strange, so unseemly were the ragged shirt and the cloak of camel’s or goat’s hair he wore over it, patched along and across, one long tatter hanging on a loose thread.  It caught in his feet, and perforce he hitched it up as he walked, and Joseph remembered that he looked upon the passenger as a mendicant wonder-worker on his round from village to village.  But Jesus had not gone very far when Joseph was stopped by a memory of a face seen long ago:  a pale bony olive face, lit with brilliant eyes.  It is he! he cried; and starting in pursuit and quickly overtaking Jesus, he called his name.  Jesus turned, and there was no doubt when the men stood face to face that the shepherd Joseph had seen in the cenoby in converse with the president, and the wandering beggar by the lake shore, were one and the same person.  Jesus asked him which way he was walking, and he answered that all directions were the same to him, for he was only come out for a breath of fresh air before bed-time.  But thinking he had expressed himself vulgarly, he added other words and waited for Jesus to speak of the beauty of God’s handiwork.  Jesus merely mentioned in answer that he was going to Capernaum, where he lodged with Simon Peter.  But he had not forgotten the brotherhood by the Dead Sea, and invited Joseph to accompany him and tell him of those whom he had left behind.  We are of the same brotherhood, he said; and then, as if noticing Joseph’s embarrassment, or you are a proselyte, maybe, who at the end of the first year retired from the order?  Many do so.  Joseph did not know how to answer this question, for he had not obtained permission from the president