IX

At the spring of the oasis at the summit of the pass leading to the

Outer Mountain, bronze-coloured doves, several oryx, and a herd of

wild asses were drinking, greyish-red creatures these, white bellied,

and marked by a broad black stripe down the back. The birds took

wing, the beasts scattered over the plain at the approach of the

camel and its two riders, who halted to water the animal and fill the

goatskins, and take food and rest.

Bands of painted, naked Blemmyes, the fierce Ethiopian nomads of the

south and eastern desert had shown themselves occasionally, but made

no attempt to attack the travellers, whom they perhaps judged to be

too poor to plunder, or too strong, fierce and well-armed to be

despoiled without exacting tribute of life in return.

Before sunrise Hazaël and the Saracen camel-driver, who had agreed to

guide him,--struck northwards through a rocky and difficult defile.

This was the opening of the road that led to the inner fastnesses of

Attaka, that stupendous mountain of pale red granite, streaked with

limestone, and sometimes veined with porphyry, from whose summit, it

was said, one could view the distant Mediterranean upon one hand; and

upon the other look over to the Sinai ranges, across the Gulf of

Heroöpolis, that widens into the Red Sea.

The region in which Hazaël now found himself was savage, bare and

solitary. At the top of the defile the camel halted and knelt. The

Jew dismounted and looked back. A crimson glow spread over the

shining waters of the Gulf of Heroöpolis, and every object possessed

two shadows; one cast by the sunrise and the other by the moon. The

yellow plain of the desert, looking west, exhibited an illusory vista

of cool blue waters, out of which rose little islands plumed with

palm groves, reflected in the depths.

"Return," the Jew said to the guide, "and wait for me with the camel

at the spring of the oasis. Yet first describe to me again, in

number and device as I shall find them, the various signs by which

pilgrims to the hermitage that is on Derhor, may find their way."

He listened as the guide spoke, storing these things in his strong

memory. Here a column of porphyry set up; there a pile of

oddly-shaped granite boulders; at the mouth of the defile an arrow

scratched on a limestone rock with a lump of crystal; at the parting

of ways a rude Cross fashioned of the pieces of a broken staff, and

jammed between two great stones.

"Swear to me by your gods," said the Jew when the idolater had ended

his recital, "that you have named these marks in the order in which

they come!"

"By the Face of Truth!" swore the camel-driver, who was a wild and

savage-looking object, with tangled hair smeared with rancid butter;

grotesquely painted of face and body; hung about with charms and

wearing a waist-cloth of gaudy colours under his mantle of

camel-hair. "I have not lied! Follow these directions and you will

return to find me waiting for you with the _heggin_. Yet pay me now

the sum agreed, in case you lose your purse upon your way!"

Hazaël reluctantly paid down half, and set out upon his solitary

journey.

The steep defile being ascended, the first sign was recognised in the

shape of a rude pillar of porphyritic rock. This passed, the surface

of the ground began to be more gently inclined. Heat radiated from

the huge pinkish-granite boulders that almost scorched the flesh.

The ground was covered with blocks of this stone, between which

showed the arid yellow soil of the desert. A scrubby bush with black

stems set with long white thorns, also tufts of seeding wild garlic

and a spiny red-fleshed wild cucumber, bitter exceedingly, with wild

fig-trees, grew between the granite rocks. Wild goats with great

horns walked upon the verge of towering precipices and bounded from

ledge to ledge. White eagles and huge ravens screamed or croaked

from inaccessible eyries. The defile being passed, the rocks sank

down. Barely a dry weed relieved the barren aridity. The yellow

gravelly ground began to billow upwards, and into the troughs of

these billows the sun poured down like molten brass.

Climbing over one of these extraordinary ridges, the Jew made an

astonishing discovery. It was a dish or charger, circular as a

Gaulish buckler, wrought with the victories of forgotten kings, and

of the purest gold. The love of the Semite for this precious

metal,--of which were carved the lions that adorned the throne of

Solomon,--plates of which covered the Temple built by Herod,--and of

which the Vine above its chief entrance was gloriously made,--caused

Hazaël's sight to dim and his powerful frame to tremble. Such a mass

of gold, all his by the right of discovery! ... He threw himself upon

the treasure with such eagerness that his foot slipped upon a rolling

pebble. He fell--and the gourd water-bottle he carried at his girdle

was smashed into bits.

Moments passed before he grasped the full extent of his misfortune.

With all his strength he could barely lift the massy charger, which

might have contained a wild-deer or a calf roasted whole. Sweat

streamed from him, and a raging thirst was aggravated by his efforts.

He moistened his throat with a few drops of water left in a fragment

of the bottle, covered the golden dish with sand, and marked the

place with three stones. Then he rose up and strode onwards.

Another defile presented itself before him,--not leading upwards but

bending to the north.

To the south another opened, floored with huge granite slabs, frowned

on by precipices. At its mouth on the left side was a conical mound

of rounded black stones. Night rushed down before Hazaël had decided

which of these forbidding roads it would be best to follow. That

indicated by the mound looked the worst.... He was beginning to

doubt the honesty of the camel-driver. If the hermitage beneath the

summit of Derhor was to be reached, he must trust to his own good

wits.

He chose the northern defile, and presently--with the rising

moon--came into a wide valley walled in by sheer cliff-faces of

limestone. At its eastern side rose a precipice of coal-black stone,

down which appeared to flow a foaming waterfall. This appearance was

caused by snow-white quartz, issuing like a solid torrent from a

point high above, and flowing down into the rocky valley. There was

no way out of this trap but the way by which Hazaël had come in.

With his agony of thirst increased tenfold by the unreal show of

water, he lifted his arms above his head and savagely cursed the

deceptive flow. And as the echoes of his deep voice resounded from

the precipitous walls of the valley, he turned about sharply--for a

high whinnying laugh had answered from behind him--and the clatter of

hoofs, light and small as an ass's or goat's, followed--galloping

over the pavement of broken stone....

"Who laughed there?" the Jew cried, but no human voice answered, and

the moon was veiled behind a light cloud that afforded no hope of

rain. When the planet looked forth, no sign appeared of the supposed

ass and his laughing rider; and Hazaël, suppressing the desire to

bestow another curse upon the cheating torrent, made the two

benedictions, and repeated the Shema for the first

night-watch,--fortifying himself against the attacks of evil spirits

within an iron wall of prayer. Then he painfully retraced his steps

through the defile previously traversed,--munching the dates he

carried in his wallet,--as the dried bread without saliva to moisten

it could not be swallowed without pain. And as he went, he slept by

snatches,--often wakened from one of these dozes by tripping amongst

boulders, or jagged sharp-edged stones.

Walking still with indomitable determination, he had just repeated

the prayer for the third night-watch, when he stepped into daylight

across the edge of dawn. A dazzling play of colour was smitten by

the sunrise from the wilderness of stone beneath and about him.

Broad veins of purple and greenish-white porphyry, with red granite,

and yellow and black limestone, with outcroppings of snowy quartz,

streaked the towering sides of the defile: the stones and gravel

beneath his great travelling boots of hippo-hide,--whose heels of

elephant-nail kept him from slipping,--was composed of fragments of

these. Looking about he came to the conclusion that in sleep, or

during an interval of darkness, he had turned aside into another

path. This led steeply up, and up,--the vari-coloured rocks closing

in until a mere streak of fierce blue sky between the walls at the

tops of the defile showed where egress might be obtained. To delay

here was to die. Therefore Hazaël determined to go on.

Now, as he toiled upwards under the increasing torture of the

sunrays, delusions born of thirst and weariness began to haunt his

path. The faces of his wife Miriam, of Levi his first-born son and

of his little daughter Leah,--rose up before him in the vivid hues of

life. His dead master; the child Florens, or Mark as he must now be

called; the monk Paule and the Abbot of Tabenna, moved with him among

the scorching stones, on which the lizard rarely basked; and between

which a few dry bushes lived without visible nourishment. Through a

strange roaring in his ears he distinguished the voices of these

phantoms. Sometimes he answered them without ceasing to walk.

He retained by this time barely the semblance of humanity. His eyes

beneath the beetling brows were red as those of the captive eagle of

Tabenna: and his long hair, and curling beard, uncombed; tangled with

burrs; soaked with sweat, and clotted with the dust with which his

ragged garments were covered, had the appearance of a wig carved in

stone. Blood flowed from cuts upon his gaunt sun-blackened

limbs--sustained when he had fallen. He realised that without water

he could not now live long. Should there be dew that night, he might

find sufficient relief by licking the stones, to endure forty-eight

hours longer. Did no dew fall, he might possibly survive yet another

day. What grieved him most was, that as the news of his death could

not reach Alexandria for a long time after the return of Ephraim by

way of the Libyan Desert with Mafa Oabu and the Saracens; his son

Levi--who had already begun to study the Mishnah--would not say

Kaddish for his father for many moons to come. And the thought of

the anguish of his widowed Miriam would have moistened his parched

eyelids, had in their dry and gritty channels one single tear

remained....

Stumbling amidst boulders, striding from stone to stone, falling,

dragging himself to his feet, and staggering on again, the recurrent

image of Miriam tormented him more sorely. The fancy that at the top

of the pass--where the rocks approached each other so nearly--her

well-loved figure would appear with that square of blue sky behind

it, became conviction. He bounded on, obsessed by the idea....

"Miriam! My loved one! ..."

He breathed like a beast roaring. His parched gullet and dried-up

lungs would barely admit the air. He was bruised from head to foot

and wounded in many places; but beyond that square of burning blue he

would find--he knew it--home.... Home,--where he was welcomed as a

King on each return from a journey,--the rooms festively adorned even

as on the Sabbath! the table spread with fair linen, rich porcelain

and costly plate,--the dishes such as he loved best; the thin sweet

Mareotic wine cooled exquisitely in snow....

"Miriam.... My wife! I come!"

He heard a sweet voice singing.... He was nearing the square of

burning blue framed in the porphyritic rock when a waft of perfume

came to him, and a figure filled the frame.

X

A woman, but not Miriam. He stared at her blankly. He strove to

speak, but his stiff tongue only clicked against his dry palate. His

mouth gaped. He drank her in with long pants, veritably as though

her beauty had been the luscious wine of Ephesus, chilled with Mount

Hermon's snow.

She was draped in a robe of fine Egyptian byssus with crimson and

purple borders, fastened about her rounded hips, and drawn over her

beautiful bronze-tinted shoulders and bosom in many transparent

folds. From beneath an Egyptian headdress of enamelled guinea-fowl's

feathers her rich hair, plaited with gold wire strung with orient

pearls and other jewels, fell down in broad bands on either side of

her small face of purest oval, from which piercing glances were

launched as arrows under eyebrows like ebony bows. Her wide silken

trousers were red as the heart of a cut pomegranate; yet shot with

green and purple in the folds. Her tiny sandals were of white

leather, ornamented with golden studs.

"O Isis! Mother of the Dog Star!" ...

She veiled herself at the sight of the stranger. The rich amber and

crimson tints of her cheeks and lips, glowing through the diaphanous

covering, suggested ripe nectarines in a dish of frosted crystal.

Her long eyes, under their jetty brows, were luminous and

beryl-green. The voice that issued from her scarlet lips was as the

cooing of doves in the sycamores; as the gurgling of waters from the

heart of a mossy hill, as she continued: shading her face with an

amber-handled fan of red flamingo-feathers, and rocking with her

quickened breaths the heavy necklace of huge pearls suspending an

emerald talisman between her swelling breasts....

"Pardon, my lord! but you appeared so suddenly! And O, the

gods!--being a woman unprotected--and this so wild and terrible a

place--"

Hazaël knew that his aspect must be terrifying. But the perfume of

roses that exhaled from the fair woman mounted to his brain in waves

of dizziness. Hush! Again the doves were cooing:

"I am the wife of an Egyptian noble. We live across the Bay, at

Arsinoë, but pass the vintage-months in our summer palace at Aënus.

And--my lord is stricken in years and yet desires posterity!--"

There was a dancing gleam of mockery in the sleepy beryl eyes. "We

have visited the shrine of the god at Pannias, but alas!--without

remedy. So my lord commanded me, poor me!--to seek out the dwelling

of this Christian hermit, offer him rich gifts, and ask him to pray

for us to The Crucified.... Indeed, to be rich and without heirs is

sad for the poor old man, is it not? Yet am I to blame for this?"

She reared her little head upon the rounded throat, and the beryl

eyes blazed angrily. "No, by Hathor! My lord Makrisi has been young

and handsome; even, dear stranger--" the feathers of her fan softly

touched the cheek of Hazaël,--"as thou thyself! ... Now is he a

withered branch. And"--she shrugged--"would even the fields of Egypt

bring forth their abundance, without the fertilising waters of the

Nile? ..."

Insensibly he had approached, his long, heavy footsteps setting the

loose stones of the steep pathway sliding downwards. His bloodshot

eyes were at the level of her scarlet lips, between which rows of

milk-white teeth were gleaming; his bearded mouth was dangerously

near the wooing fragrance of her bosom. She sighed, and warm sweet

fragrance assailed his expanding nostrils, and caressed his parched

temples and cheeks. And the heat of the morning sun was like the

downward draught of a white-hot smelting furnace. And the dazzling

blue above and behind her seemed to burn in azure flame....

"O speak again! ... Do not cease!" he heard himself croaking, as

though the cool, sweet, gurgling voice had power to quench the thirst

with which he burned. She laughed beautifully; and said, pointing

with her fan to a great reed pannier with a carrying-strap, set

within the shadow of a deep cleft or cave in the face of the porphyry

rock:

"See how this surly Saint has treated me, a Princess of the house of

Schabak! Look upon this basket of purple figs, and black grapes

bursting with honeyed ripeness! and green melons with scarlet flesh

dripping with cloying golden juice.... By Phthah! the weight is as

much as my black slave Zet can bear, and this man would not even open

the door of the ruined temple under the shadow of the dome of Derhor,

where he dwells with the Lili and the Lilith--the bat and the

screech-owl--and the great white eagles, and the falcons of the

rock--or answer me a word. So I wept, I was so angered, and Zet wept

also,--for to carry the pannier down the mountain was abominable to

him. And when we heard you coming he set it down and ran away. And

for this he shall be beaten with rods until the blood runs, when we

return home. Why do you look at me so strangely, O Satrap? for I see

by your mien that you are governor of a province, in Assyria or

Persia possibly? Am I less fair than the women of your country?

Have I no beauty in your sight?"

Hazaël answered in his thirst-cracked voice, with reddened eyes

devouring her:

"O Princess! Even in dreams I have never beheld a woman to compare

with thee! But--but--I am wedded. A fountain springs in the

courtyard of my house, and a fruitful vine shadows my threshold; and

as apples of gold in a network of silver, precious unto me is the

love of my wife!"

He reeled as he spoke and clouds passed before his eyes as though the

steam of the blood boiling in his veins had rushed into his

brain-pan. Blindly he sought to push them away. And a soft small

hand closed on his huge wrist, and his arm became powerless and fell

across her shoulder. He swayed like a giant palm-tree whose trunk is

sawn through. And with astonishing strength the Princess supported

him, saying in that voice like the gurgle of cool waters:

"Thou art famished. Men unfed ever talk of virtue. There are other

things in the pannier besides figs and melons and grapes. Rolls of

Egyptian flour, white as snow and light as foam-flakes; and roasted

quails in peppered jelly, wrapped in fresh green leaves. And

meat-balls with spices, cheese-cakes and saffron-curds, and bottles

of cool Nile water and also a flask or two of yellow Theban wine.

Let us go into yonder cave and eat and drink together. When thou art

refreshed, we will talk, or if thou wouldst--sleep!"

And the movement of her lips in framing such words as "eat," "drink"

and "together," had infinite allurement, but less than "refreshed"

and "sleep." Her utterance of these bewitched and bewildered.

Hazaël felt as one smothering in roses, or sinking in the embrace of

perfumed arms upon a bosom smooth and cool as silk. And realising in

a flash his desperate predicament:

"O Lord my GOD!" he cried aloud, "look upon my shame and see my

sorrow! From the evil impulse, from the evil companion: from Satan

the Destroyer and from judgment, do Thou in Thy Mercy deliver me!"

Whereupon the Princess Schabak with a burst of high, whinnying

laughter, skipped backwards,--and nimbly as a mountain goat--leaped

upon a ledge of rock jutting from the cliff-face high above the level

of the astonished Israelite's head. At the same time the pannier in

the cave fell over and burst open, disgorging a cataract of repulsive

creatures; vipers with horns, chameleons with popping eyes, lizards,

tarantulas, scorpions and huge brown bats,--which flying round and

round in the dazzling sunshine beat about Hazaël's ears with their

leathery, hooked wings and entangled themselves in his hair.

Deafened, appalled, exhausted and choked with thirst, heat and

stench, he fell down swooning,--fortunately for his reason!--within

the shadow of the cave....

When he revived, the rocky gorge was filled with the crimson of the

sunset. The blazing heat had abated somewhat, the fresh smell of

water came to his nostrils, and he groaned and opened his eyes. Then

he cried out in thankfulness to God, Who had sent him water in his

extremity,--for at the very back of the cave a thread of wet showed

on the wall above a natural basin in the rock bordered with delicate

black-stemmed green ferns, that contained a draught or two. As the

cool liquid flowed down his dried throat; life revived in him newly.

He ate of his bread, soaking it, and also took some dates.

Then he found his staff, went up the pass, and squeezed through the

narrow aperture. The path now became little more than a goat-walk

upon the barren mountain's flank.

A vast prospect spread about and beneath him, upon the right hand of

the desert and the Nile beyond it:--with the islands, cities,

gardens, palm-groves, temples; the distant cataracts, and the ranges

of sandstone and syenite beyond the towns on the Libyan bank.

Looking to the east his eye embraced Mount Serbal and the terrible

splendour of Sinai, the Tih Mountains and Desert of Sin. Nearer, he

looked down upon the Gulf of Heroöpolis,--the town at its mouth, and

the city of Clysma upon the plain of the promontory, with the

Wilderness of Etnam, and the Arabian Desert beyond.... North to

Syria, bordered with the blue fillet of the Mediterranean, his glance

ranged; and then with a cool breath fanning his brow, and stirring in

the folds of his garments, he lifted up his eyes--and beheld the

immense round summit of Mount Derhor, gleaming--white as though hoary

with innumerable ages, touched with the fading rose of the sunset and

crowned with the evening star. A vast tract of snow-white limestone,

not level, but tilted at a steep angle, traversed with innumerable

waved ridges, crevices and fissures and resembling a petrified

cataract, spread between the traveller and the base of the stupendous

dome. An irregular building, like a Pagan tomb or temple, partly in

ruins, could be seen upon the dome's eastern side.

Desolation. Not a grass-blade, not a bush, nor tuft of wormwood

found nourishment enough to sustain life in all that arid region.

Yet here the Athlete of Christ had lived since he quitted Tabenna;

eating every third day of dried bread--of which a store was left for

him at the oasis every six months--moistening the flint-hard cakes

with water fetched from the spring in a heavy stone jar. When the

water in the jar came to an end too soon, according to the monks of

Tabenna and the Coptish boatmen, the Blessed One would eat the snow

if it were winter; or gather the dew,--soaking it up with linen rags,

or that porous fungus that much resembles sponge. And these he would

suck, to quench the thirst that tormented him, nor would he, were

this relief withheld, descend the mountain to fetch more water, until

the arrival of the appointed day.

Night fell. So close together and so deep were the fissures in the

limestone, that Hazaël determined not to attempt to reach the

hermitage until the rising of the moon. So he waited, seated upon a

boulder; a strange, wild figure, dishevelled, scarred and bleeding;

with battered weapons, and robes dusty and ragged; burning with

impatience to do his errand and return to the oasis whilst strength

remained to him....

Suddenly the Mount from its base to its summit was girt with sheaves

of towering flame of strange and marvellous colours. At the same

moment a tumult broke forth of indescribable and hellish violence.

Awful voices thundered opprobrium, or wakened the echoes of the

precipices and chasms with shouts of hideous laughter, answered by

other invisible beings from the fissures in the plain.

"Filthy monk! Scourge of the desert! Master of wild asses! ...

Preacher to lizards! ... Awaken! Rise and get you gone out of this

place!" ...

"Ah! ... Ah!" ... other unseen beings wailed in chorus: "Shall we

never be rid of thee, thou Dweller on the Threshold? Begone! Depart

from us! ... Were not the desolate places given to us, and the lands

wherein no water flows?" ...

A frightful voice bellowed:

"Drive him forth! Assault him! Torment him with serpents! Worry

him with jackals and wild dogs! Borrow the beaks and claws of

eagles! Bid the lions devour him! Or if the wild creatures refuse,

send against him from the Shrine of Pan another furious Satyr! ...

Beleaguer him with phantoms in myriads of forms!"

And dancing fires girt the dome, playing over the moveless waters of

the stony cataract, and pale figures of wraith-like mistiness, and

dark shapes of mountainous stature seemed to surround and hem it in.

And suddenly these appearances sank down and vanished before the

terror-stricken sight of Hazaël: with groans, and yells, and

blasphemies that caused the hair to stiffen upon his head, and cold

sweat to bathe his limbs.

A flood of brilliance dazzled his eyes. From the violet-purple vault

of the sky, in which the hosts of heaven were now gleaming, a ray of

Light, of indescribable whiteness and luminosity descended, seeming

to pierce the roof of the ruined temple beneath Derhor's giant dome.

And Hazaël heard the sound of a harp masterfully played, and a man's

deep voice singing:

"Let GOD arise!

And let His enemies be scattered.

And let all those who hate Him flee

Before Him!

Let them be destroyed

Even as smoke is made to disappear;

And as wax melteth before the fire--

Let the wicked perish

Before GOD!"

When the psalm ceased the column of light faded into a mild bluish

radiance that lingered still above the dwelling of the Saint. Such

absolute stillness reigned that the sigh of the night-breeze, and the

groan of a metal bolt in grooves of stone, came to Hazaël across the

distance. A door swung inwards; a light--not supernatural, but that

of a palm-torch,--shone across the threshold, and a voice, strong and

mellow as that of a young man, cried down across the steep expanse of

sinister shadows:

"O man of Alexandria, seeking here a sinner!--draw near if you desire

to, and do not be afraid!"

Hearing, Hazaël rose from the rock he sat on, and cried back in a

tone of wrath:

"I am not afraid, O Athlete of Christ!--if it be you who speak to me!

But wisdom counsels not to ascend this steep of perilous abysses--at

least until the rising of the moon!"

Before his voice had ceased to echo amongst the stony waves of the

tilted sea of shadows, the strong melodious voice of the solitary

called back:

"The crevices are deep, and strange things abide in them!--and there

is peril as you say. Yet if in the Name of the Crucified you struck

out boldly among these solid waters, nothing of harm would come to

you. For neither earthly dangers nor the malevolence of devils, have

terrors for one armed with the Might of the Cross."

Hazaël shouted back, with a dinning at his ear-drums:

"The Eternal One, who brought the Chosen forth of this land of

Egypt,--will guide me safely to thy door! For it is written that He

does not forsake the righteous. Have I not in the strength of mine

uprightness this day prevailed against a Succuba? Lo! before me the

accursed demon fled, showing feet like the split hoofs of goats."

The voice replied melodiously across the distance:

"Blessed and glorified be He Who delivered thee! Glorified and

blessed be Christ Jesus, His only begotten Son! Glorified and

blessed be the Paraclete, the Comforter! Praised, blessed and

magnified be the Holy Trinity, One in Three! Amen!"

Panting with defiance Hazaël thundered:

"The Lord is One! He is holy and His Name is holy, and the Holy Ones

praise Him every day! Selah! Blessed art Thou, Jehovah, the Shield

of Abraham! And blessed is he who even as Rabba Jehudah, called the

righteous, can lift up both his hands to heaven, affirming that not

one of the ten fingers upon them, is guilty of breaking the law of

God!"

He ceased, and the voice of the hermit answered, saying:

"Nay!--but a thousand times more blessed is he, who,--not daring to

lift a finger,--falls down prostrate before his Master, crying:

'Lord, have mercy upon me a sinner!' For it is written that He

pitieth the humble, and turns away His face from the arrogant."

Now the moon, in her last quarter, rose from over the Red Sea. The

limestone cataract, illuminated, took on a milky whiteness, in which

the innumerable cracks and chasms showed like wavy bands of black.

Hazaël grasped his staff and strode upwards, confident that within so

many minutes he would be pounding at the ascetic's doors. But a dark

cloud, not often seen save in the rainy season, suddenly veiled the

lustre of the planet, and the Jew found himself standing in pitchy

darkness, upon an ascending ridge between two deep chasms, unable to

advance, or to retrace his steps.

Suddenly a gust of wind rushed down a cleft in the mountains,

dragging at Hazaël's garments as though with invisible hands. A

jagged double flash of violet lightning followed. Dazzled, the Jew

trod upon a pebble of limestone; fell--and still retaining his grip

upon his staff, found himself sliding towards the brink of the abyss

upon his left hand. A deafening peal of thunder preceded a flash

still more vivid, which illuminated the depths beneath. With

starting eyes Hazaël beheld at the bottom of the gulf--which seemed

about to swallow him--the monstrous putrefying body of a creature

part-human and part-animal. And the thought of tumbling down to

wallow in the Satyr's corruption, and share one tomb with the

shag-thighed offspring of unnatural and hideous lust, wrought on the

brain of the man so that he shrieked in desperation:

"Save me, O man of Christ!--I perish!"

And heard the voice of the hermit answer calmly:

"Man cannot save, but only Christ!"

Upon which, as the lightning hissed and crackled about him like

flights of spears steeped in burning pitch and naphtha, and feeling

his strength about to fail, Hazaël groaned out:

"Then pray to thy Christ to deliver me!"

And hearing no answer out of the distance, he resigned himself to

despair. But from some source unknown, strength suddenly flowed back

into him. His brain cleared, and by a sudden muscular effort he was

enabled to draw back his body, rise--and stand upon his feet....

"Thanks,--thanks!" he stammered out, as though to the owner of some

hand that had plucked him from peril. Then, in sudden anger, he dug

his teeth into his lower lip.

The storm had passed. The calm light of the moon irradiated the

immovable cataract of limestone: the Jew traversed the remaining

distance safely, and stood before the door of the recluse.