There was no conversation.  People do not talk when they are cold, and wretched, and sleepy.  We nodded in the saddle, at times, and woke up with a start to find that the procession had disappeared in the gloom.  Then there was energy and attention to business until its dusky outlines came in sight again.  Occasionally the order was passed in a low voice down the line:  “Close up—­close up!  Bedouins lurk here, every where!” What an exquisite shudder it sent shivering along one’s spine!

We reached the famous river before four o’clock, and the night was so black that we could have ridden into it without seeing it.  Some of us were in an unhappy frame of mind.  We waited and waited for daylight, but it did not come.  Finally we went away in the dark and slept an hour on the ground, in the bushes, and caught cold.  It was a costly nap, on that account, but otherwise it was a paying investment because it brought unconsciousness of the dreary minutes and put us in a somewhat fitter mood for a first glimpse of the sacred river.

With the first suspicion of dawn, every pilgrim took off his clothes and waded into the dark torrent, singing: 

               “On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand,
               And cast a wistful eye
               To Canaan’s fair and happy land,
               Where my possessions lie.”

But they did not sing long.  The water was so fearfully cold that they were obliged to stop singing and scamper out again.  Then they stood on the bank shivering, and so chagrined and so grieved, that they merited holiest compassion.  Because another dream, another cherished hope, had failed.  They had promised themselves all along that they would cross the Jordan where the Israelites crossed it when they entered Canaan from their long pilgrimage in the desert.  They would cross where the twelve stones were placed in memory of that great event.  While they did it they would picture to themselves that vast army of pilgrims marching through the cloven waters, bearing the hallowed ark of the covenant and shouting hosannahs, and singing songs of thanksgiving and praise.  Each had promised himself that he would be the first to cross.  They were at the goal of their hopes at last, but the current was too swift, the water was too cold!

It was then that Jack did them a service.  With that engaging recklessness of consequences which is natural to youth, and so proper and so seemly, as well, he went and led the way across the Jordan, and all was happiness again.  Every individual waded over, then, and stood upon the further bank.  The water was not quite breast deep, any where.  If it had been more, we could hardly have accomplished the feat, for the strong current would have swept us down the stream, and we would have been exhausted and drowned before reaching a place where we could make a landing.  The main object compassed, the drooping, miserable party sat down to wait for the