question Banu turned towards the hillside, like one that deemed his last
exhortation to be enough, and who desired an undisturbed possession of
the solitude. But at the entrance of the cave he stopped: the track is
easy to lose after nightfall, he said, and panthers will be about in
search of gazelles. Thou wouldst do well to remain with me: my cave is
secure against wild beasts. Look behind thee: how dark are the rocks and
hills! Joseph cast his eyes in the direction of Jericho and thanked God
for having put a kind thought into the hermit's mind, for the landscape
was gloomy enough already, and an hour hence he would be stumbling over
a panther in the dark, and the sensation of teeth clutching at his
throat and of hind claws tearing out his belly banished from his mind
all thoughts of the unpleasantness of passing a night in a narrow cave
with Banu, whom he helped to close the entrance with a big stone and to
pile up other stones about the big stone making themselves safe, so Banu
said, from everything except perhaps a bear.

The thought of the bear that might scrape aside the stone kept Joseph
awake listening to Banu snoring, and to the jackals that barked all
night long. They are quarrelling among themselves, Banu said, turning
over, for the jackals succeeded in waking him, quarrelling over some
gazelle they've caught. A moment after, he was asleep again, and Joseph,
despite his fear of the wild beasts, must have dozed for a little while,
for he started up, his hair on end. A bear! a bear! he cried, without
awakening Banu, and he listened to a scratching and a sniffling round
the stones with which they had blocked the entrance to the cave. Or a
panther, he said to himself. The animal moved away, and then Joseph lay
awake hour after hour, dropping to sleep and awakening again and again.

About an hour after sunrise, Banu awakened him and asked him to help him
to roll the stones aside; which Joseph did, and as soon as they were in