the Cross has not been raised; for he said: "If I die, I die to the
glory of God, and if I live it must be to the same end." Only he
felt a secret pang at the thought that he might die without seeing
his lauds again. But the third day, without misadventure, he came
out on another valley.

Then he began to climb the mountain, first through brown woods of
beech and oak, then through pine and broom, and then across red
stony ledges where only a pinched growth of lentisk and briar spread
in patches over the rock. By this time he thought to have reached
his goal, but for two more days he fared on through the same scene,
with the sky close over him and the green valleys of earth receding
far below. Sometimes for hours he saw only the red glistering slopes
tufted with thin bushes, and the hard blue heaven so close that it
seemed his hand could touch it; then at a turn of the path the rocks
rolled apart, the eye plunged down a long pine-clad defile, and
beyond it the forest flowed in mighty undulations to a plain shining
with cities and another mountain-range many days' journey away. To
some eyes this would have been a terrible spectacle, reminding the
wayfarer of his remoteness from his kind, and of the perils which
lurk in waste places and the weakness of man against them; but the
Hermit was so mated to solitude, and felt such love for all things
created, that to him the bare rocks sang of their Maker and the vast
distance bore witness to His greatness. So His servant journeyed on
unafraid.

But one morning, after a long climb over steep and difficult slopes,
the wayfarer halted suddenly at a bend of the way; for beyond the
defile at his feet there was no plain shining with cities, but a
bare expanse of shaken silver that reached away to the rim of the