"Where God wills," answered Francis. "Our brother the body is a cell, and the soul is a monk inhabiting it."
Their faces were thick with dust, and the sweat from their brows traced runnels in it; their lips were parched, and their eyes ached from the dazzling light. On all sides lay the great plains, and no trees rose out of them.
"I thirst," said Angelo.
"Perhaps we shall pass a little stream," answered Francis. "Be not cast down. At evening we shall look back on all that we have suffered for our Lady Poverty, and we shall be glad. It will rejoice us that we have been tried, and have not been found unworthy."
Yet the sun had not declined much from the zenith, and it was long until the evening. Their feet dragged wearily.
"God hath forsaken us," said Giovanni.
"Cast that thought from thee, my brother," said Francis. "Though we perish here in this desert place, God hath not forsaken us. Shall we faint at a little suffering, we who were proud at dawn? Surely we should suffer a little for his sake, who suffered so much for ours."
But they had grown feverish with the heat; they gasped and sobbed, swaying like drunken men, muttering as if in a delirium; and a great fear covered Francis, as he watched them.
"My God," he prayed silently, yet moving his parched lips, "if I have done anything accounted worthy in thy sight, grant that I may suffer for these. Let us not perish utterly."
They sank down one by one beside the dusty road, and the fierce heat streamed down on them: one or two muttered, but most of them lay still.