of prayer, that some were cured at once, some after two or three
days, and all within a week.

So staying there two years, and always meditating flight, he sent
Hesychius to Palestine, to salute the brethren, visit the ashes of
the monastery, and return in the spring. When he returned, and
Hilarion was longing to sail again to Egypt,--that is, to the cattle
pastures, {123a} because there is no Christian there, but only a
fierce and barbarous folk,--he persuaded the old man rather to
withdraw into some more secret spot in the island itself. And
looking round it long till he had examined it all over, he led him
away twelve miles from the sea, among lonely and rough mountains,
where they could hardly climb up, creeping on hands and knees. When
they were within, they beheld a spot terrible and very lonely,
surrounded with trees, which had, too, waters falling from the brow
of a cliff, and a most pleasant little garden, and many fruit-trees-
-the fruit of which, however, Hilarion never ate--and near it the
ruin of a very ancient temple, {123b} out of which (so he and his
disciples averred) the voices of so many daemons resounded day and
night, that you would have fancied an army there. With which he was
exceedingly delighted, because he had his foes close to him; and
dwelt therein five years; and (while Hesychius often visited him) he
was much cheered up in this last period of his life, because owing
to the roughness and difficulty of the ground, and the multitude of
ghosts (as was commonly reported), few, or none, ever dare climb up
to him.

But one day, going out of the little garden, he saw a man paralytic
in all his limbs, lying before the gate; and having asked Hesychius
who he was, and how he had come, he was told that the man was the