She blushed as she thus for the first time praised herself to him, but Hermas exclaimed, “That is a good girl! and I will not forget it.  You are a wild, silly thing, but I believe that you are to be relied on by those to whom you feel kindly.”

“Only try me,” cried Miriam holding out her hand to him.  He took it, and as they went on together he said: 

“Do you hear the brass?  I have warned the watchmen up there; the Blemmyes are coming.  Is Paulus with my father?”

“No, but I know where he is.”

“Then you must call him,” said the young man.  “Him first and then Gelasius, and Psoes, and Dulas, and any more of the penitents that you can find.  They must all go to the castle by the ravine.  Now I will go to my father; you hurry on and show that you are to be trusted.”  As he spoke he put his arm round her waist, but she slipped shyly away, and calling out, “I will take them all the message,” she hurried off.

In front of the cave where she had hoped to meet with Paulus she found Sirona; she did not stop with her, but contented herself with laughing wildly and calling out words of abuse.

Guided by the idea that she should find the Alexandrian at the nearest well, she went on and called him, then hurrying on from cave to cave she delivered her message in Hermas’ name, happy to serve him.

CHAPTER XX.

They were all collected behind the rough wall on the edge of the ravine-the strange men who had turned their back on life with all its joys and pails, its duties and its delights, on the community and family to which they belonged, and had fled to the desert, there to strive for a prize above and beyond this life, when they had of their own free-will renounced all other effort.  In the voiceless desert, far from the enticing echoes of the world, it might be easy to kill every sensual impulse, to throw off the fetters of the world, and so bring that humanity, which was bound to the dust through sin and the flesh, nearer to the pure and incorporate being of the Divinity.

All these men were Christians, and, like the Saviour who had freely taken torments upon Himself to become the Redeemer, they too sought through the purifying power of suffering to free themselves from the dross of their impure human nature, and by severe penance to contribute their share of atonement for their own guilt, and for that of all their race.  No fear of persecution had driven them into the desert—­nothing but the hope of gaining the hardest of victories.

All the anchorites who had been summoned to the tower were Egyptians and Syrians, and among the former particularly there were many who, being already inured to abstinence and penance in the service of the old gods in their own country, now as Christians had selected as the scene of their pious exercises the very spot where the Lord must have revealed Himself to his elect.