hunger. He followed the declivity to its base, then turning to the left,
he crossed a small table land, which was easily accessible from the
gorge, but which on the side of the oasis formed a perpendicular cliff
many fathoms deep. Between it and the main mass of the mountain rose
numerous single peaks, like a camp of granite tents, or a wildly tossing
sea suddenly turned to stone; behind these blocks ran the streamlet,
which he found after a short search.

Perfectly refreshed, and with renewed resolve to bear the worst with
patience, he returned to the plateau, and from the edge of the precipice
he gazed down into the desert gorge that stretched away far below his
feet, and in whose deepest and remotest hollow the palmgroves and
tamarisk-thickets of the oasis showed as a sharply defined mass of green,
like a luxuriant wreath flung upon a bier. The whitewashed roofs of the
little town of Pharan shone brightly among the branches and clumps of
verdure, and above them all rose the new church, which he was now
forbidden to enter. For a moment the thought was keenly painful that he
was excluded from the devotions of the community, from the Lord's supper
and from congregational prayer, but then he asked, was not every block of
stone on the mountain an altar--was not the blue sky above a thousand
times wider, and more splendid than the mightiest dome raised by the
hand of man, not even excepting the vaulted roof of the Serapeum at
Alexandria, and he remembered the "Amen" of the stones, that had rung
out after the preaching of the blind man. By this time he had quite
recovered himself, and he went towards the cliff in order to find a
cavern that he knew of, and that was empty--for its gray-headed
inhabitant had died some weeks since. "Verily," thought he, "it seems to
me that I am by no means weighed down by the burden of my disgrace, but,
on the contrary, lifted up. Here at least I need not cast down my eyes,
for I am alone with my God, and in his presence I feel I need not be