Chapter III: Part 3

But still Malchus persisted. "Tell me what I ought to do to become a hermit, and I will do it."

"I have told you," answered the old man, quietly, "that it is not possible for you to become a hermit, but if you wish to lead the holy life, go to a desert monastery; there they will receive you. Here I live alone and often I eat only once in five days, and even then I do not eat a full meal."

He said this to dissuade Malchus from his impossible ambition. But Malchus replied: "For the last four days, my father, I have eaten nothing. There on the sand are the remains of the loaf which I last tasted before the end of our journey."

The old man, gazing at Malchus, knew that what he said was true. "Rise up," he said, "and get the bread which you threw away, and come into the cell."

Malchus obeyed. The doorway of the cell opened into a little room whose floor was the bare sand, and its walls the same rough stones as the exterior. A table stood near the door, on it a mug and two earthenware dishes, and a bench beside it; on the floor lay a sheepskin and a great heap of dried palm leaves, and from pegs in the wall hung a full sack and a goatskin containing water. A doorless opening led to a small inner chamber having an altar and a wooden crucifix, and, at the height of a man standing, a little window guarded by two wooden bars.

Malchus stood in the doorway with his fragment of loaf in his hand, waiting to be invited to enter; but Serapion took no notice of him. He was lifting down the water skin from its peg and, untying the neck, he poured some water into a dish. Then, going to the sack, he took out a little loaf and, dipping it in the water, began to eat. Malchus expected that he would invite him to eat, too, but Serapion had, it seemed, forgotten him, and Malchus, unable to endure the sight of another man eating, turned away his eyes and leaned his weary body against the door-post.

When Serapion and finished eating he stood up and began to chant the psalm called "De Profundis." Malchus stood upright and, as Serapion proceeded to chant the same psalm many times over, he joined in the chanting. When Serapion had chanted the psalm twelve times he fell on his knees and began to pray aloud, saying prayers up to the number of twelve. He did all these things in order to test the patience and forbearance of Malchus. But Malchus joined gladly in the psalms and prayers, for he felt that he was now receiving direction and help in what he should do.

When they had finished it was already late in the evening and, as Serapion seemed again to have forgotten him, Malchus resolved to return to his place outside. It seemed to him now a terrible thing to be going back to that state of spiritual torpor which came upon him in his loneliness whenever he had conquered the fierce obsession of bodily hunger; and so he turned, before leaving his cell, to Serapion.

"Will you not give me some rule, my father," he asked, "for meditation and prayer, for it is hard, without experience, to know how best to turn the soul to God."

Serapion was silent. He was considering the case of this young man so stubbornly determined to take upon himself the hard life of the hermit. He considered how he had fasted for four days and then, when bitterly disappointed in his hope of food, had been glad to join in the long psalm-singing and prayers, and how he had lain in the open unprotected for four nights and was ready now to go back uncomplaining to his place. And seeing so much good will waiting only for guidance to express itself in good works, the hermit was touched and, stretching out his hand in the dark, he took Malchus by the cloak and drew him back into the cell and toward the doorway of the small inner chamber. "Go in," he said, "and twelve times throughout the night you shall recite the psalm which we recited this evening. This you must do standing, but between every repetition kneel down and meditate upon the words until they become the very words of your soul crying to God."

Malchus groped his way into the little oratory and stood before the altar. To spend the night within four walls, undisturbed by the fear of prowling beasts, was for him the most blessed ease. Though his body was feeble from fasting and his brain dizzy from lack of sleep, his soul was warm with happiness at the prospect of passing the night as Serapion had instructed him, for it seemed now that he had been rescued from his own doubt and ignorance and that Serapion was beginning to relent toward him. He was glad that he had been set to perform not only a discipline of the soul, but also a discipline of the body. Once during the night, as he knelt in meditation, it seemed to him that his soul floated away from his body, and he saw his body bowed down before the altar and, standing upon the altar above him, the figure of a man with wings. Great wings they were, curving high above his shoulders and reaching downward to his heels, and every feather of them was plumed with rays of light. The figure grew clearer, brighter, it seemed to pulsate with the intensity of its brightness. Then Malchus's soul began to return to his body, his body roused itself with a little shudder, and he sat up on his heels and stared at the dark altar with a dazed mind. But the memory of the vision filled him with encouragement and he raised his aching body and stood again to recite the psalm.

When the daylight returned an unearthly peace had settled upon him. The voice of Serapion called him from the outer chamber, and Malchus found him standing at his table before a heap of dried palm leaves.

"My father," he said to the old man, "I feel that my soul is at rest."

The hermit looked up from a palm leaf which he was tearing into strips. "For a little while," he replied, "that is well."

"And it is not always well for the soul to be at rest?"

"No, my son, for it is by war and strife, and not by rest, that the soul advances in spiritual excellence."

"Is it then wrong to pray to be delivered from strife?"

"When strife comes upon us we must pray, not that the strife may be removed, but that we may have patience to overcome the strife."

"And what if I find myself for a long time at peace?"

"Then you must pray to God to let the strife return to you."

"But if strife is good, why do they that seek God fly from the towns and villages where, as I well know, there is endless strife for the soul?"

"Because worldly strife blinds and oppresses the soul; but here in the desert a man finds only the strife of the heart which is the path of spiritual excellence. Here the spirit is free from those other kinds of strife--the strife which arises from the ears, the eyes, and the mouth. But now," he said, "you must watch me so as to learn how to make mats and ropes of palm leaves. These dried palm leaves must be split up into ribbons, and when we have a good supply of ribbons we must lay them in the trough to soak."

As he spoke he was splitting up the leaves into long, narrow strips, tearing the leaf always along the grain, and when Malchus saw how the splitting was done he took a leaf and began to tear it in the same way.

"This," the old man went on, "is the easiest part of the work. It needs no more than a little care and neatness. But when we have finished the splitting I can show you at once how to plait, for I set some other strips to soak last night, that we should not be delayed by having to wait for these to soak, for the soaking is a matter of some hours."

The hermit ceased to talk and he and Malchus continued to work on the heap of leaves till Malchus's fingers, unhardened as yet by manual work, were covered with painful cuts from the sharp-edged leaves. When the whole heap was finished, the hermit stooped and, turning back the sheepskin which lay on the floor, disclosed a stone trough from which he lifted a dripping sheaf of ribbons which had been soaking all night. These he laid on the table and, having done so, threw into the trough those which they had just split. "Now," he said, "you must watch carefully;" and choosing the most suitable strips, he began slowly but with the deftness and precision of an expert to plait the first rows of a narrow mat. Having done so, he took the work to pieces and repeated the operation three times. And when he had plaited it again a fourth time he handed the piece to Malchus. "Now," he said, "take it, and take these soaked strips, too, and sit down outside in the shadow of the cell and continue from the point at which I stopped. Take also the sheepskin there, so that you can lay the strips on it and keep them out of the sand. When you have woven to the length of your arm, let me see what you have done."

Malchus obeyed, and for three hours he sat laboring patiently at the work, while the free ends of the strips escaped repeatedly from his inexperienced fingers and worked themselves loose, and the chafing of the strips hurt the cuts in his fingers, which were becoming more and more painful. When at last he had woven an arm's length he took it in for Serapion to inspect. The old man examined it critically, and then without a word unplaited all that Malchus had done. "The weaving is very loose," he said. "See that it is closer next time."

Malchus humbly took up the unraveled strips and went out to begin again. It was now the height of noon. Sky, sand, and surrounding air radiated a sultry glow, and Malchus, becoming every hour more feeble, felt as if he were imprisoned in an oven. So far from gaining any facility in weaving, it seemed to him that he was becoming more and more clumsy and, to add to his difficulties, the strips, creased and twisted by the first weaving, would not conform to a new texture. His fingers were bleeding now; the blood was staining the strips; and when after two hours he had finished, he found that his weaving was as loose as before. When he went in despair to show this new attempt to Serapion, the old man looked up impatiently and remarked, after a scornful glance at the work, that it was no better than before. "Take it to pieces and begin again," he ordered, and Malchus, concealing his bitter discouragement, went out and did so, trying again to improve the work. But by this time the strips were so creased and strained that even the greatest adept could have made nothing of them, and when Malchus, after a long, disheartening struggle, had finished, he saw that the weaving was now looser than ever. Tears of vexation stood in his eyes. He had been at work for over six hours and he was exhausted in body and mind. The pain from his fingers aggravated the pain in his heart and he felt that if Serapion set him to do the work for a fourth time he would be unable to prevent himself from breaking into sobs. But when Serapion had again examined the work, he laid it aside without remark and, turning to Malchus, asked him, "Will you eat, my son?"

The sudden release from the long strain almost snapped the feeble cord of Malchus's self-control. Tears ran down his cheeks, but with a last effort he mastered himself. "You know best, my father," he answered, "what is right for me to do."

The hermit, without further speech, set a dish of water on the table and, bringing a shell full of salt and four small loaves from the sack, he signed to Malchus to sit down with him at the table. Then he gave Malchus one of the loaves, and himself took Malchus's dry and sandy fragment, and they began to eat together, dipping their loaves in the water to soften them.

The hard, stale stuff seemed to Malchus more delicious than the rarest of the delicacies he had tasted at the feasts of Alexandria. The savor of it on his tongue and in his nostrils filled all his physical being with delight; but he forced himself to eat slowly, trembling lest his gluttony should become apparent to Serapion and should discredit him in his eyes.

When they had finished, Serapion spoke again. "My son," he said, "will you eat another loaf?"

"If you will eat another, my father, I will do so," answered Malchus; "but if you will not, neither will I."

"I have had enough," Serapion replied, "for I am a hermit and I have eaten already to-day."

"Then, I, too, have had enough," said Malchus, "for I seek to become a hermit."

Serapion dropped the other two loaves into the sack again, for he knew that after so long a fast it would be better for Malchus to eat no more; and seeing that his strength was almost spent for lack of repose, he bade him lie down in the cell and sleep, "for fasting and watching," he said, "are in themselves worth nothing, but only in so far as they minister to the soul."

_Chapter
Seven_

Malchus had been with Serapion for forty days and during all that time he had followed with gladness the orderly rule of life which the hermit prescribed. His thoughts and desires, surfeited of the refined sensuality of his former life, turned easily to this new life in which every privation and every act of discipline was for him a revolt against the hated past. It seemed as if his mind had been purged of desire, for during all that time he was untroubled by the lusts of the flesh; and as Serapion permitted him every evening to eat a small meal of bread and salt or of dried dates, the dreams and reveries concerning food and wine had ceased to molest him. He had soon mastered the art of plaiting palm leaves and could now make ropes, mats, and baskets which would be good enough to sell; and when the hours of prayer and meditation were over he fell to work on a mat or basket, rejoicing to see his own handiwork grow under his fingers. Only twice during these forty days had any human soul penetrated into the empty desert which inclosed them. Once when Malchus was chanting a psalm in the oratory he was surprised by the sound of a strange voice calling out a greeting which was answered by the voice of Serapion. At the sound of it Malchus forgot his chanting and, driven by curiosity, began to listen avidly to the conversation which followed the greeting. But Serapion called to him, bidding him continue his devotions, and putting a great constraint upon himself, he forced himself to continue until he had finished the appointed service. By that time there was silence in the cell, and when he came into the outer room he found Serapion alone. The old man did not speak, and Malchus, knowing that this silence was intended as a rebuke to his curiosity, took up a half-woven basket and went out. Far below him, swaying faintly above its black shadow on the immaculate sweep of the desert, a figure no larger than a weevil toiled southward toward the remoter deserts of Thebaid; and who he was and why he had come to the cell Malchus never knew.

The second visitor had come a few days later, leading an ass laden with baskets and sacks. An hour before he arrived, Malchus, who sat weaving a basket outside the cell, had seen a small dark blot moving upon the stainless face of the desert. He had watched it until it split into two blots, one larger than the other, and then tiny moving images of man and beast had grown slowly to creatures of natural size. When they had reached the foot of the slope below the cell, the driver had left his beast and climbed the sliding bank alone. He carried a leather sack slung over his left shoulder. The ass stood patiently below, flapping each ear alternately; from where he sat, Malchus could see the swarm of flies swaying like smoke about its head. The man had reached the top of the slope. It was evident that he did not see Malchus, for he approached the cell cautiously, as if hoping to escape notice. But before he could reach the door Serapion came out, and after they had greeted each other he took from the stranger the sack he was carrying, and then held out his hand. The stranger made a gesture of refusal. "Do not repay me, brother," he said, "for by accepting them as a gift you will confer a blessing on me."

"Take the payment that is your due, brother," answered Serapion; "for has not the Lord Jesus commanded us to owe no man anything?"

The stranger took the money that Serapion offered. "It shall go, then, to some one who has need of it," he said. That was the end of their talk. Serapion carried the sack into the cell, and presently brought it back empty; the stranger took it and with a brief farewell departed, and it seemed to Malchus a marvelous thing that, living alone in that inhuman desolation, the hermit should not be tempted to delay his visitor in talk.

When he had finished weaving the basket, Malchus returned to the cell and found the hermit standing by the table, which was covered with many little loaves of bread and a jar of oil. "By God's mercy," he said, "Brother Apollonius has brought us enough food for thirty days, and so I shall be spared the journey to the monastery in Nitria, which is the nearest place where bread can be obtained. That brother was once a merchant in Alexandria, but, being desirous to lead the holy life, he left his business and departed to Nitria; and since he was unable either to learn any handicraft or to watch and fast to any great degree, he took upon himself to go at regular intervals to Alexandria and buy there the things required by the brethren; and besides this, he carries pomegranates and raisins and eggs and other needful things to them that are sick among the hermits that live round about Nitria. Nor is that all; for when that is done, he goes forth, as now, to visit the hermits who live many miles beyond, bringing to them the things without which a man cannot live. But for this he is unwilling to receive payment, doing it for God's sake, and often when I have been absent from this cell, or praying in the oratory, I have afterward found food set upon the window-sill or left at the door. So has Brother Apollonius found for himself a way in which he can serve God and benefit the faithful."

While he was speaking, Serapion had taken from the sack the loaves which still remained there. There were only three of them. "See!" he said to Malchus. "If Brother Apollonius had not come to-day, I should have had to set out for Nitria to-morrow." Then with Malchus's help he dropped all the new loaves into the sack till it hung from its peg full-bellied as the carcass of a hind which a hunter has slung by the feet from the wall of his cabin.

"But the water skin, too, is almost empty," said Malchus.

"To-morrow," replied Serapion, "I am going to refill it."

He spoke as if it were an easy matter, and Malchus supposed, therefore, that there must be some spring not far off. But Serapion told him that the nearest spring was five miles away; "and this spring," he said, "is dry for two months of the year, and when last I filled the skin from it, on the day before I started for Alexandria, I saw that it was beginning to run dry. It will be quite dry by this time and so I must go to the river."

"But the river is many miles away," said Malchus.

"It is fifteen miles from here," answered the old man, "and as there is no moon at present I shall have to start early so as to reach the river before nightfall. At the first hint of daylight I shall start back, and before sunset I shall be here."

"I will come and help you," said Malchus, "for the skin, when full, must be a heavy load."

But the hermit would not allow Malchus to accompany him, and next day, when Malchus had finished his prayers, he found that Serapion was gone and the skin was gone from the wall, and, running out-of-doors, he espied, far off, the small figure which had grown so familiar to him during the long journey from Alexandria. Already it was halfway across the plain which extended, smooth as a sea of milk, from the foot of the steep descent beneath him to the next great wave of the desert. For a long time Malchus stood watching it with a strange sinking at the heart. Then he turned to his plaiting, and when he looked again Serapion had vanished over the next crest.

For the first time Malchus was face to face with utter solitude, and at the sense of it a profound loneliness descended upon him. He discovered now that, even during the hours when he had been unable to see or hear Serapion, he had always, by some unknown sense, felt the comfort of his companionship. For little by little, without being aware of it, he had fastened upon the old man all those bonds of human affection which he had so ruthlessly severed when he fled from Alexandria. Serapion had become for him his father, his mother, and his dear friend, and, deprived of him, he was deprived of everything. Everything but himself, for now, as in a fever, he had become sharply aware of himself as a thing separate from all else. At the same time vivid memories of his former life began to assail him. One after another they flowed through his mind, each with its own keen emotion; and last of all the face of Helena flashed upon his inner eye with the heart-shaking clearness of reality. He cried out aloud and, not knowing what he did, sprang to his feet and ran into the cell, as though to take refuge from some specter or prowling beast. There he fell on his knees and hid his face in his hands. The discovery that he had not, after all, escaped from the past, that he bore it still stored up within him and ready to spring to life and torture him in his moments of weakness, filled him with bitter discouragement. Crouching there immovable, he prayed passionately for strength, and after a while strength came to him and he rose from his knees and returned to his weaving. He had by now become so expert that he could work blindfold, and he sat now with his head cloth drawn over his face to keep off the flies which through the hot hours incessantly plagued every living thing. But now the hot, veering note of their buzzing brought comfort to him, for it raised a screen of sound between him and the huge silence which inclosed him, and soon the busy monotony of manual labor lulled his heart into resignation, and at last even into contentment. He was completing the largest mat he had yet made, and when he had finished the last rows he secured the loose ends and, standing up, spread it out on the sand. The texture was beautifully close and even. Malchus heaved a sigh of accomplishment and surveyed it with pleasure. But as he did so there came into his mind the occasion on which he had first completed a mat of sound workmanship and had carried it proudly to Serapion. Serapion had examined it carefully, nodding his head many times over it, and had then, without comment, spent an hour in pulling it to pieces. The ruthless destruction of his handiwork had pained Malchus deeply, and for the first time his heart had risen in revolt against the hermit; but he had controlled his tongue and had gone out and lain for an hour sulking behind the cell. By that time his pride had submitted and he was at peace again. In the evening Serapion had recited many times over the verses which contain that command of the Lord Jesus, "Set not your affections upon things of the earth"; and when Malchus had learned it by heart Serapion had set him to meditate upon it, "and do not forget, my son," he had said, "that to cast off the world of men is nothing, for unless a man has also cast off the smallest earthly delight, his soul is still of this world." And next morning, as Malchus went out to work, Serapion had looked up and said to him, "You have now mastered the art of plaiting leaves."

That memory now rose to rebuke his pleasure in the mat which he had just finished, but this time he did not revolt against the rebuke; he only lamented his failure to progress in the attainment of perfection, and in order to purge from his heart the smallest taint of pride, he sat down and sternly set himself to pick the beautiful mat to pieces. It was a slow process, not only because the mat was large, but also because he was taking care not to strain the ribbons, for he was determined to weave them into baskets. And when at last he had quite undone the work of many days, he set to work at once on the first of the baskets and worked on until it was finished.

By that time the sun had set. Arched immeasurably above the earth, the sky, deep beyond deep, was one great flame of scarlet. Blood-red and luminous, the desert from horizon to horizon blazed it back until in that world of sultry, all-pervading glow the very air seemed red. It was a moment of mysterious intensity, the symbol, it seemed, of that august sacrifice in which the divine blood had been poured upon the world as an atonement for the sins of man. Malchus, caught into a holy exaltation, stood with uplifted arms; the huge gray crucifix of his shadow extended down the long slope from his feet. "Redeem me also, O blessed Lord," he prayed; "burn out my sins with the fire of thy blood."

The moment faded. The face of the desert grew ashen-gray and soon the earth-floored, heaven-roofed furnace had changed to a pallid and desolate cavern from whose emptiness the chilled heart recoiled. Malchus lowered his arms, and as he did so a sudden draught fluttered past him and within a few feet from where he stood a little whirlwind troubled the sand. It grew, and soon a grim and threatening wraith rose upward to a giant's height and towered above him. The whirling sand had gathered itself into a human body. Malchus, speaking aloud the name of Christ, made the Sign of the Cross, and the life went out of the wraith and it collapsed into dust before his eyes. But the sight of it had troubled him. It was as if it had arisen, hard upon the divine mystery of the sunset, as a sign of that other mystery in which are hidden the powers of darkness and evil. A cold spasm shook his body, and, gathering together his work, he retreated into the cell and by the last vestiges of twilight ate his single meal of bread and salt.

He ate slowly because he dreaded the long, empty hours of darkness which lay before him; for now, for the first time, he realized complete isolation. He stared at the darkness of the cell and it seemed to him that it was thick and spongy, a gloom grown palpable. But the silence was more terrible than the darkness; its infinity and its horrible imminence shriveled his soul; its intensity seemed every moment to be on the point of concentrating into some terrible climax. Later in the night, he knew, it would break in those shrieks and howls which were even more harrowing than silence itself, and he found himself dreading the moment when the first howl should come. Yet silence and darkness and all the fears of the night could do nothing, he well knew, against the perfect safety to be found in prayer, and his mind turned to the oratory. But he felt a strange reluctance to move. If he moved, he felt, he would loose all these waiting terrors that had gathered silently about the cell. He controlled himself sternly and, standing up, repeated aloud the psalm which begins, "Save me, O God; for the waters are come even unto my soul." The sound of his own voice reassured him and the silence moved farther away.

When he had repeated the psalm twice he groped toward the oratory and paused for a moment in the doorway. Though he heard and saw nothing, he knew that the oratory was not empty. He waited with beating heart, and suddenly a fluttering, intermittent draught smote his face with soft, impalpable blows. Fear clutched at his heart, a fear which leaped up into horror at a sudden pattering of hands against the bars of the little window. With his right hand Malchus made the holy sign upon the darkness and repeated again the same psalm. When he had finished it he paused again, and now he could feel that the cell was empty. Then with a braver heart he entered and began his nightly prayers and meditations, and as he prayed aloud a warm sense of security settled upon him. Only when he stopped praying and fell to meditating did the terrible silence return, pouring in upon him through the window, welling coldly through the doorway, bringing a sense of the draughty void that encompassed him, till his soul struggled as if in deep water, and again he took refuge in prayer. He prayed until his words stumbled into nonsense and his body swayed like a tree in the wind, and, feeling that he was going to fall, he leaned against the wall of the cell. The relief of even that little respite sent a wave of luxurious numbness through his body; his heavy eyelids dropped for a moment as if by their own weight. Then slowly the dark form of a human head took shape upon a background of cloudy gold. It cleared, brightened, took on color and life, and the face of Helena gazed at him with shining eyes and parted lips of kindling passion. His own lips moved and he muttered her name with slow, incredulous delight.

Instantly long, derisive shrieks broke in upon the silence, then other shrieks, and others still, filling the night with an infernal chorus which roused into ghastly life the boundless void about the cell. Malchus sprang shuddering from his dream. His body was cold with fear, for he was convinced now that these nightly shrieks were in very truth the voices of those powers of evil which tower up out of the sand or lurk expectant in the silence, waiting for the moment when one of the faithful, flagging in the endless contest, should yield to them an accession of power. He prayed loudly and fervently, and soon the shrieks grew fainter, dying in bayings and howlings miles away down the wilderness.

For the remainder of the night Malchus, beating his breast and wrestling with bodily exhaustion and flagging spirits, persevered in prayer, remembering what Serapion had told him of the power of prayer. For once, Serapion had said, when he and the Abba Macarius had stood by night in the open desert, they had seen a great column of light set upon a hilltop and reaching up into the sky, and the blessed Macarius had told him that it was the prayers of the monks in the great monastery of Nitria ascending to the everlasting throne. And at last, as if in answer to Malchus's prayers, a gray, watery light filled the cell and the little window became a gleaming square, pure and clear as the gleam on a silver shield. Malchus, cold and exhausted, felt his soul thrilled by the blessed redemption of daylight, and, dragging his stiffened body into the outer chamber, he opened the door and went out.

Below him the infinite gray desert lay dwarfed and shrunk beneath a vast sheaf of golden light springing far beyond the blue hills which bordered the Nile. It was as though the prayers of all faithful throughout the length and breadth of Egypt had been gathered together into the east. And somewhere, an invisible atom in the lower grayness, Malchus knew that Serapion must at that moment be toiling back to him under the heavy load of the water skin.

_Chapter
Eight_

With the return of day Malchus's mind grew calm again and he remembered the terrors and struggles of the night as a man remembers vaguely the fever that has left him. Throughout the day he followed scrupulously the appointed order of his life, but as the day declined the prospect of Serapion's return roused in him an expectancy so keen that he could with difficulty prevent himself from running down the hill and starting off across the plain to meet the old man. But this, he knew, would displease him, and he resolved that Serapion should find him faithfully observing his duties. He denied himself even the relief of glancing from time to time across the desert for a first sight of him; but he could not quell his inward excitement, and as he sat weaving with the head cloth drawn over his face his nerves were alert and tense for the moment of Serapion's return. Even if he neither saw nor heard him, he would know instinctively that he was near. But hour followed hour, and Malchus, having finished another basket, lifted his cowl and saw that the sun was setting. He gathered together his work and moved with a heavy heart toward the cell. When he reached the door he saw Serapion standing within; he had prepared the table for a meal. Malchus's heart leaped into his throat; his impulse was to fling away his work and throw himself at the old man's feet. He checked the impulse and waited, humble and expectant, for Serapion to turn and greet him, and when he neither turned nor spoke Malchus shrank back, chilled into himself. As he laid away his work the old man's quiet voice broke the silence, "Have you eaten, my son?" and when Malchus replied that he had not, Serapion brought another loaf from the sack and they ate in silence.

Next morning, an hour before the dawn, Malchus heard the voice of Serapion calling to him from outside. He rose from his knees and, going into the outer chamber, opened the door of the cell. It was as if he had opened a door on eternity. Before him lay the bare, dead world of a burned-out planet, an ancient world, crushed and exhausted by the weight of never-ending time. At these twilight intervals mankind with its loves and angers and unearthly ideals shrank to a thing of no more account than a heap of stones or a fume of sand endlessly agitated in the eddies of a pool. Even the face of the world itself lost its separate reality and became a part of the expression of some divine or infernal mood, a mystery never to be fathomed by the mind, but waking in the soul an untranslatable echo. Malchus stood for a moment thrilled and appalled before he moved out to the edge of the terrace where the figure of the hermit stood so lifeless and immovable that Malchus could hardly believe that the voice which had called him had issued from it. So intense was the silence that it seemed that, when at last it broke, the whole of creation would be shivered with it.

But when Serapion spoke his voice was no more than a mote in the silence. "My son," he said, "the time has come for you to depart."

Malchus made no reply. Ever since Serapion had relented toward him and taken him into his cell he had deluded himself with the hope that he might remain always with the old man as his servant. Serapion had become a vital part of his life and the sudden discovery that he himself had no part in the life of Serapion chilled him like the presence of death. His only friend was casting him off and he felt that the heart in his body was shriveling and dying. Serapion did not even care what happened to him, for he added nothing to the order that he must depart; and though he had from the first refused to advise Malchus in his choice of the hermit life, saying that such a choice must come from within and not from without, yet now this indifference cut him to the heart. He did not know how careful Serapion's treatment of him had been from the beginning, nor that many of the things which had seemed to be accidental occurrences had been arranged by the old man in order to show Malchus to himself and give him the needful experience out of which to make his choice. He did not even perceive that before sending him away Serapion had given him a foretaste of that absolute solitude which was the hermit's daily life, and then had waited until that experience had sunk into his mind and spread its influence there.

He stood for a long while silent with lowered head, struggling with his emotions. Then, laying aside all shame, he fell on his knees before Serapion. "Let me stay with you, my father," he begged. "Let me be your servant."

He knew that his request was craven, that he had weakly fallen away from that unshakable resolve with which he had clung to the hermit despite the fierce repulse he had received. Where was that courage now? He waited like a fawning animal for the hermit's reply.

Serapion replied without looking at him, "He who is a servant himself has no need of a servant."

"Where, then, shall I go?" whined Malchus.

"Your own heart must tell you where to go, my son. But, for to-day, go out into the desert a mile or two from here and spend the time till nightfall in meditation. Then return and tell me what you have decided, for to-morrow you must depart."

Malchus turned away in despair and began to descend the sandy slope to the plain below. At the bottom he turned to the right and followed the base of the hill which wavered away southward. It was strange, after having lived so long within the little circle about Serapion's cell, to be wandering alone in the boundless waste of sand. The forty days which he had passed with Serapion seemed to include the whole of his life. The rest was dreams, for the days of his former life had receded far behind him. But the sufferings through which he had passed had left him feeble and over-sensitive, and as an uprooted plant seeks roothold in the smallest handful of earth, so his broken spirit clung to Serapion. Faced with the necessity of severing himself again from human ties, he shrank and shuddered as a sick man shudders at the knife.

He had fallen unconsciously into the patient, unhurrying tread which he had learned during the long desert journey. The line of the sandhills now curved westward and, finding a shady hollow carved out of the hill face, he turned into it. A clatter startled the hollow; he had disturbed two great birds which towered suddenly upward and vanished over the sandbank, leaving behind them a heap, half skeleton, half carrion. Malchus hesitated. He had long grown accustomed to do violence to his old fastidiousness, but he remembered that, now that the birds were gone, the carrion would become a gathering place for swarms of flies, and so he turned aside and, finding another hollow a little farther on, he entered it and sat down.

It was the first time in his new life that he had set himself to meditate on earthly matters. Hitherto his meditations had been a discipline of the soul, teaching it to ascend by means of prayer into the presence of God. Now, having shared for a while the life of a hermit, he must decide whether he had the will and the strength to follow that life himself. But he had made that decision once for all when he had left Alexandria and followed the steps of Serapion. Why, then, should he decide again? But Malchus knew that in truth he must decide again, for the first decision was made in ignorance and under the impulsion of a great storm of passion. Now he must decide out of experience and a quiet mind. Yet in his present mood how difficult it would have been to decide if he had not had that first impetuous decision to fire his will. For now his will was weak and passive, he could, of himself, have willed nothing positive. That strong craving for a life of self-discipline and fierce austerity had died down now to a mere acquiescence; now he felt strongly only about the things from which he recoiled, for from his old life he still recoiled with all the force of his being.

An hour passed, then another, and by degrees, as a flower draws moisture from the soil in which it grows, his mind drank in something of the peace and silence which surrounded him. The shock had spent itself. He grew reconciled to the thought that he must leave Serapion. With the return of calm he could see more deeply into the hidden places of his spirit and he perceived that the days of stern discipline through which he had passed had planted in him a growing fervor, an aspiration which was becoming gradually more and more clear, as if the whole strength of body and soul were drawing itself together and fusing into one burning core. He felt, too, and mistook it for a virtue, the fanatic's pride in those mortifications of the flesh which in themselves are less than nothing. And as he fell to pondering again the hermit's life, the most arduous and the most exalted that man can pursue, his soul took fire and he longed to submit himself to the fiercest rigors of which man is capable. In the intensity of his emotions he rose to his feet and stood upright with glaring eyes and hands crossed upon his breast. The life he had chosen lay visibly before him, a ravaged waste beset with hunger and thirst and parching heat, with foul beasts and devils and the hidden terrors and torments of endless nights, and at the end of it that high Paradise of green boughs through which the wings of archangels moved like great lilies of scarlet and gold about the ineffable throne of God. From the wilderness around him he reached out his arms toward that remote salvation, struggling toward it across the obstacles that clogged his steps. But in a moment the vision had faded and he stood again englobed in the parched and glaring gold dust of the sandy hollow. In the exaltation of his dream he had staggered forward in the loose sand, and now he stood blindly wondering which of the two worlds was the real one, telling himself that this world of sand and heat which was so often present to his mind was but a ghost, and that the true reality was that spirit world to which the soul ascended only in the rare moments of divine ecstasy. As the sun dropped into the west and the material world melted again into the nightly holocaust, he knew that he stood on the edge of eternity and looked for a moment through the veil of things seen into the unspeakable mystery beyond; and as he turned back toward Serapion's cell, walking through the sunset as the three holy children walked through the fiery furnace, he felt that his mind had grown stern and unshakable as adamant....

When Serapion heard that Malchus was resolved to take upon himself the burden of the hermit he was filled with gladness. "Blessed be God and the Lord Jesus," he said, "who have given you the strength to choose aright. Far be it from me now, my son, to discourage you. Know then that six miles from here, to the south, there stands a lonely cell. Fifty years ago the blessed Poemon built it with his own hands and lived in it till the day when he rendered his soul to God. He died in the act of prayer, for when two of the brethren found him his dead body was bowed before the crucifix. Last time I went by the cell it was falling into ruin; it is for you to rebuild it. To-morrow, then, at dawn we will set out and you shall take with you tools--for I have some here--to help you to restore the place. You shall take also a half of our loaves and the water skin that I have just filled."

"But I cannot take the water skin, my father, for you have no other."

"Do not trouble yourself about that. If it were not right that you should have it, I would not give it to you. But go out now and scoop away the sand from the south wall of this cell. You will find buried there an ax and a spade."

While Serapion had been speaking, that tremulous sense, half fear, half delight, which is the very spirit of life, had crept into Malchus's heart and, going out as Serapion had directed him, he found the ax and the spade and brought them into the cell.

"To-night," said the hermit, "you must sleep, for when we have need of the body we must minister to the body."

_Chapter
Nine_

The air was gentle and cool when they started southward next morning an hour before the dawn, carrying the spade and ax, the water skin, and two large baskets full of loaves. The desert, pale and impalpable as mist, lay gray and smooth before them, and Malchus felt that he was withdrawing still farther from the living world of men and rivers and green things, pushing on into a realm void of all outward life, the very battle ground of the soul. His heart was firm; with every breath he seemed to inhale a courage and power that were not of this world. Soon the long sky line on their left had lightened to a pale, crystalline green which before long became so intense that the eastward facets of every stone, every sandy hummock and tuft of hard desert grass, gleamed with a wash of greenish light. Their own slowly plodding figures were modeled on the left sides, even to the smallest fold and feature, in green and gray, and sharp green edges danced upon the ax and spade and the burdens that rose and fell with their moving backs. And as if that light were sensibly cold, a cool breath from the east touched cheek and hand and leg. Then quite suddenly night had become day, for green had flushed into saffron and saffron into orange. Malchus looked behind him. Unbroken desert stretched northward; the high ledge on which Serapion's cell was perched, so humanly familiar to him that it had come to be for him the very center and meaning of the northern desert, was lost in formless desolation. But the south, in this morning light, held nothing sinister; its pure solitude wore the pale, flushed beauty of a flower, and as they tramped onward Malchus drew into his nostrils a subtle tremulous peace which thrilled both body and soul. He closed his eyes for a moment and it seemed that his brain tingled with its gentle intoxication. In the depths of his mind, like dusky weeds waving on the bottom of a dark pool, the knowledge that to-night and every night henceforward he would be alone, utterly alone in this empty world, sent up a bubble of pain into his consciousness, and for a moment he lived again through the emotions of his one solitary night in Serapion's cell. But soon his exaltation of mind had exorcised all human weakness and he strode along at the hermit's side, strong and full of courage. The sun grew fierce; their lips clove to their teeth and the spittle turned thick in their mouths, and as they moved stubbornly on they were surrounded by the acrid fume of their own sweat.

It was still early when Serapion pointed to a hill not far ahead of them. Gaunt and bare, it rose above the plain like a ruined city which the desert had swallowed. But there had never been any city there; it was primeval rock and sand, and century by century the winds and rains were eating it down to the level nonentity of the desert.

Serapion stretched out an arm. "Upon that eastern slope," he said, "a broken rock juts from the smooth line of the hill."

Malchus shaded his eyes with his hand. "Yes," he said, "I see it, midway between the summit and the level ground."

"That is the cell of the blessed Poemon," said Serapion. "In half an hour we shall reach it."

Malchus stared at the small tooth-like projection, and in face of the iron reality his heart sank. How willingly at that moment would he have bound himself to tramp on forever through the hot sand at Serapion's side. Vain wish, for step by step the cell became more real, more inescapable. Soon it would reach its full stature and swallow him forever....

Like two great vultures about a foundered ewe, Malchus and Serapion, the only moving things in a motionless world, paced about the cell, examining it carefully and scarring the virgin face of the sand with their footprints. The cell, like Serapion's, was a small square divided by a partition into an outer chamber and a small inner oratory. The eastern wall, which had contained the door, had fallen into ruin, and with it the roof had collapsed, and a part of the other walls, but the oratory was still intact, though it was half filled with drifted sand which, year by year, had been blown in through the doorway and window.

"Here, my son," said Serapion, "is a refuge already prepared for you. See how God has preserved the inner room, which is the place of prayer, for a sign to you that however much the outer man is afflicted and maimed, the soul within is a refuge which no power can destroy."