trickery and cozenage there was none: for the men along these banks bore
witness to the baptism that Joseph would have seen for himself if he had
started a little earlier; nor could the Jesus who came to John for
baptism be other than the young shepherd whom Joseph had seen, at the
beginning of his novitiate, walking with the president in deep converse;
the president apparently trying to dissuade him from some project.
Joseph could not remember having heard anyone speak so familiarly or so
authoritatively to the president, a man some twenty years older; and he
wondered at the time how a mere shepherd from the hills could talk on an
equality, as if they were friends, with the president. The shepherd, he
now heard, was an Essene, but he lived among the hills, and Joseph
remembered the striped shirt, the sheepskin and the long stride. His
memory continued to unfold, and he recalled with singular distinctness
and pleasure the fine broad brow curving upwards--a noble arch, he said
to himself--the eyes distant as stars and the underlying sadness in his
voice oftentimes soft and low, but with a cry in it; and he remembered
how their eyes met, and it seemed to Joseph that he read in the
shepherd's eyes a look of recognition and amity.

And now, as he walked from the Jordan to the cenoby, he remembered how,
all one night after that meeting, dreams of a mutual destiny plagued
him: how he slept and was awakened by visions that fled from his mind as
he strove to recall them. But was this young shepherd the one that Banu
saw John baptize in the Jordan? It cannot be else, he said to himself.
But whither was Jesus gone? Did the brethren know, and if they did know
would they tell him? It was against the rule to put questions: only the
president could tell him, and he dared not go to the president. Yet
consult somebody he must; and a few days afterwards he got leave again
to visit Banu, whom he found lying in his cave, sick: not very sick;
though having eaten nothing for nearly two days he begged Joseph to