Petrus made no answer to these words, which came is a stormy flood from
Hermas' lips, but he stroked his grey beard, and thought to himself,
"The young of the eagle does not catch flies. I shall never win over
this soldier's son to our peaceful handicraft, but he shall not remain on
the mountain among these queer sluggards, for there he is being ruined,
and yet he is not of a common sort."

When he had given a few orders to the overseer of his workmen, he
followed the young man to see his suffering father.

It was now some hours since Hermas and Paulus had left the wounded
anchorite, and he still lay alone in his cave. The sun, as it rose
higher and higher, blazed down upon the rocks, which began to radiate
their heat, and the hermit's dwelling was suffocatingly hot. The pain of
the poor man's wound increased, his fever was greater, and he was very
thirsty. There stood the jug, which Paulus had given him, but it was
long since empty, and neither Paulus nor Hermas had come back. He
listened anxiously to the sounds in the distance, and fancied at first
that he heard the Alexandrian's footstep, and then that he heard loud
words and suppressed groans coming from his cave. Stephanus tried to
call out, but he himself could hardly hear the feeble sound, which, with
his wounded breast and parched mouth, he succeeded in uttering. Then
he fain would have prayed, but fearful mental anguish disturbed his
devotion. All the horrors of desertion came upon him, and he who had
lived a life overflowing with action and enjoyment, with disenchantment
and satiety, who now in solitude carried on an incessant spiritual
struggle for the highest goal--this man felt himself as disconsolate
and lonely as a bewildered child that has lost its mother.

He lay on his bed of pain softly crying, and when he observed by the