As the youth disappeared behind the rocks, Paulus said, “He marches on like an experienced soldier, and the others follow him as sheep follow a ram.  But hark!—­Certainly—­the foremost division of the Pharanites and the enemy have met.  The outcry comes nearer and nearer.”

“Then all will be well,” cried Stephanus excitedly.  “If they only take the bait and let themselves be drawn on to the plateau I think they are lost.  From here we can watch the whole progress of the battle, and if our side are driven back it may easily happen that they will throw themselves into the castle.  Now not a pebble must be thrown in vain, for if our tower becomes the central point of the struggle the defenders will need stones to fling.”

These words were heard by several of the anchorites, and as now the war-cries and the noise of the fight came nearer and nearer, and one and another repeated to each other that their place of refuge would, become the centre of the combat, the frightened penitents quitted the posts assigned to them by Paulus, ran hither and thither in spite of the Alexandrian’s severe prohibition, and most of them at last joined the company of the old and feeble, whose psalms grew more and more lamentable as danger pressed closer upon them.

Loudest of all was the wailing of the Saite Orion who cried with uplifted bands, “What wilt Thou of us miserable creatures, O Lord?  When Moses left Thy chosen people on this very spot for only forty days, they at once fell away from Thee; and we, we without any leader have spent all our life in Thy service, and have given up all that can rejoice the heart, and have taken every kind of suffering upon us to please Thee! and now these hideous heathen are surging round us again, and will kill us.  Is this the reward of victory for our striving and our long wrestling?”

The rest joined in the lamentation of the Saite, but Paulus stepped into their midst, blamed them for their cowardice, and with warm and urgent speech implored them to return to their posts so that the wall might be guarded at least on the eastern and more accessible side, and that the castle might not fall an easy prey into the hands of an enemy from whom no quarter was to be expected.  Some of the anchorites were already proceeding to obey the Alexandrian’s injunction, when a fearful cry, the war-cry of the Blemmyes who were in pursuit of the Pharanites, rose from the foot of their rock of refuge.

They crowded together again in terror; Salathiel the Syrian, had ventured to the edge of the abyss, and had looked over old Stephanus’ shoulder down into the hollow, and when he rushed back to his companions, crying in terror, “Our men are flying!”

Gelasius shrieked aloud, beat his breast, and tore his rough black hair, crying out: 

“O Lord God, what wilt Thou of us?  Is it vain then to strive after righteousness and virtue that Thou givest us over unto death, and dost not fight for us?  If we are overcome by the heathen, ungodliness and brute force will boast themselves as though they had won the victory over righteousness and truth!”