Loudest of all was the wailing of the Saite Orion who cried with uplifted
bands, "What wilt Thou of us miserable creatures, O Lord? When Moses
left Thy chosen people on this very spot for only forty days, they at
once fell away from Thee; and we, we without any leader have spent all
our life in Thy service, and have given up all that can rejoice the
heart, and have taken every kind of suffering upon us to please Thee!
and now these hideous heathen are surging round us again, and will kill
us. Is this the reward of victory for our striving and our long
wrestling?"

The rest joined in the lamentation of the Saite, but Paulus stepped into
their midst, blamed them for their cowardice, and with warm and urgent
speech implored them to return to their posts so that the wall might be
guarded at least on the eastern and more accessible side, and that the
castle might not fall an easy prey into the hands of an enemy from whom
no quarter was to be expected. Some of the anchorites were already
proceeding to obey the Alexandrian's injunction, when a fearful cry, the
war-cry of the Blemmyes who were in pursuit of the Pharanites, rose from
the foot of their rock of refuge.

They crowded together again in terror; Salathiel the Syrian, had ventured
to the edge of the abyss, and had looked over old Stephanus' shoulder
down into the hollow, and when he rushed back to his companions, crying
in terror, "Our men are flying!"

Gelasius shrieked aloud, beat his breast, and tore his rough black hair,
crying out:

"O Lord God, what wilt Thou of us? Is it vain then to strive after
righteousness and virtue that Thou givest us over unto death, and dost