About an hour after sunrise, Banu awakened him and asked him to help him to roll the stones aside; which Joseph did, and as soon as they were in the dusk he turned out of his pockets a few crusts and some cheese made out of ewe's milk, and offered to share the food with his host; but Banu, pointing to a store of locusts, put some of the insects into his mouth and told Joseph that his vow was not to eat any other food till God called him forth to preach; which would be, he thought, a few days before the judgment: a view that Joseph did not try to combat, nor did he eat his bread and cheese before him, lest the sight of it should turn the prophet's stomach from the locusts. It was distressing to watch him chewing them; they were not easy to swallow, but he got them down at last with the aid of some water obtained from the source, and during breakfast his talk was all the while of the day of judgment and the anger of God, who would destroy Israel and build up another nation that would obey him. It would be three or four days before the judgment that God would call him out to preach, he repeated; and Joseph was waiting to hear how far distant were these days? A month, a year, belike some years, for God's patience is great. He stopped speaking suddenly, and throwing out his arms he cried out: he has come, he has come! He whom the world is waiting for. Baptize him! Baptize him! He whom the world is waiting for has come.
But for whom is the world waiting? Joseph asked; and Banu answered: hasten to the Jordan, and find him whom thou seekest.
CHAP. IX.
I shall pray that the Lord call thee out of the desert to join thy voice with those already preaching, Joseph cried; and the hermit answered him: let us praise the Lord for having sent us the new prophet! But do thou hasten to John, he called after Joseph, who ran and walked alternately, striving up every hillock for sight of the ferryman's boat which might well be waiting on this side for him to step on board; Joseph being in a hurry, it would certainly be lying under the opposite bank, the ferryman asleep in it, and so soundly that no cries would awaken him.
But Joseph's fortune was kinder than he anticipated, for on arriving at the Jordan he found himself at the very spot where the ferryman had tied his boat and—napping—awaited a passenger. So rousing him with a great shout, Joseph leaped on board and told the old fellow to pull his hardest; but having been pulling across the Jordan for nigh fifty years, the ferryman was little disposed to alter his stroke for the pleasure of the young man, who, he remembered, had not paid him over-liberally yester-evening; and in the mid-stream he rested on his oars, so that he might the better discern the great multitude gathered on yon bank. For baptism, he said; or making ready to go home after baptism, he added; and letting his boat drift, sat discoursing on the cold of the water, which he said was colder than he ever knew it before at this season of the year: remarks' that Joseph considered well enough in themselves, but out of his humour. So ye be craving for baptism, the ferryman said, and looked as if he did not care a wild fig whether Joseph got it that morning or missed it. But there was no use arguing with the ferryman, who after a long stare fell to his oars, but so leisurely that Joseph seized one of them and—putting his full strength upon it—turned the boat's head up-stream.
There be no landing up-stream anywhere, so loose my oars or I'll leave them to thee, the ferryman growled, and we shall be twirling about stream till midday and after. But I can row, Joseph said. Then row! and the ferryman put the other oar into his hand. But we shall be quicker across if thou'lt leave them to me. And as this seemed to Joseph the truth, he fell back into his seat, and did not get out of it till the boat touched the bank. But he jumped too soon and fell into the mud, causing much laughter along the bank, and not a few ribald remarks, some saying that he needed baptism more than those that had gotten it. But a hand was reached out to him, and that he should ask for the Baptist before thinking of his clothes showed the multitude that he must be another prophet, which he denied, calling on heaven to witness that he was not one: whereupon he was mistaken for a great sinner, and heard that however great his repentance it would avail him nothing, for the Baptist was gone away with his disciple. Joseph, thinking that he had left the Baptist's disciple in the desert, began to argue that this could not be, and raved incontinently at the man, bringing others round him, till he was hemmed into a circle of ridicule. Among the multitude many were of the same faith as Joseph himself, and these drew him out of the circle and explained to him that the Baptist baptized in the river for several hours, till—unable to bear the cold any longer—he had gone away, his teeth chattering, with Jesus the Essene.
Jesus the Essene! Joseph repeated, but before he could inquire further, men came running along the bank, saying they had sins to repent, and on hearing that the Baptist was gone and would not return that day, they began to tell each other stories of the great cloud that was seen in the east, bearing within it a chariot; and from the chariot angels were seen descending all the morning with flaming swords in their hands. Get thee baptized! they shouted, and clamoured, and pushed to and fro—a thronging gesticulating multitude of brown faces and hooked noses, of bony shoulders and striped shirts. Get thee baptized before sunset! everybody was crying. And Joseph watched the veils floating from their turbans as they fled southwards. On what errand? he asked; in search of the Baptist or the new disciple Jesus? Not the new disciple, was the answer he got back; for Jesus leaves baptism to John. But why doesn't Jesus baptize? Joseph asked, since he is a disciple of the Baptist. If baptism be good for him, it is good enough for another. And so the multitude seemed to think, and were confounded till one amongst them said that Jesus might not be endowed with the gift of baptism; or belike have accepted baptism from John for a purpose, it having been prophesied that the Messiah would have a forerunner. But who, asked many voices together, has said that Jesus is the Messiah? some maintaining that Jesus was the lesser prophet. But this contention was not agreeable to all, some having, for, reasons unknown to Joseph, ranged themselves already alongside of Jesus, believing him to be greater than John, yet not the final prophet promised to Israel. And these came to blows with the others, who looked upon John as the Messiah, and Jesus as the one whom John had called to his standard: a recruit—nothing. Skinny fists were striving in the air and—thrusting himself between two disputants—Joseph begged them to tell him if Jesus, John's disciple, was from the cenoby? Yea, yea, he heard from all sides; the shepherd of the brotherhood—that one who follows their flocks over the hills; but not being sure of his mission, he has gone into the desert to wait for a sign. An Essene, but one that was seldom in the cenoby, more often to be met on the hills with his flocks. A shepherd? Joseph asked. Yea, and it was among the hills that John met him, and seeing a prophet in him spoke to him, and Jesus, seeing that another prophet was risen up in Israel, had thrown his flute away and gone to the president to ask for leave to preach the baptism of repentance unto men, for the grand day is at hand. Joseph having heard this before, heeded only tidings of the new prophet, when a woman pressing forward shouted: a pleasant voice to hear on the mountain-side, said she; and another added: the hills will seem lonely without his gait. A great slinger, cried a third. But why did he come to John for baptism, knowing himself to be the greater prophet? A question that started them all wrangling again, and crying one against the other that repentance was necessary, or else the Lord would desert them or choose another race.
These are irksome gossips, a man said to Joseph; but come with me and I'll tell thee much about him. No better shepherd than he ever ranged the hills. I wouldn't have thee forget, mate, another man said, that he's gone without leaving us his great cure for scab. True for thee, mate, answered the first, for a great forgetfulness has been on him this time past.... A great cure, certainly, which he might have left us. And the twain fell to discussing their several cures for scab. Another shepherd came by and passed the remark that Jesus knew the hills like one born among them. But neither could tell whence he came, nor did they know if he brought the cure for scab with him, or learnt it at the cenoby. The brotherhood has secrets that it is forbidden to tell. I be with thee on this matter, said another shepherd, that wherever he goes, he'll be a prize to a master, for the schooling he has been through will stand to him.
The last of this chatter that came to Joseph's ears was that Jesus could do as much with sheep as any man since Abraham, and—satisfied with this knowledge—he took his leave of the shepherds, certain that Jesus must have been among the Essenes for many years before God called to him to leave his dogs and to follow John, whom he began to recognise as greater than himself, but whom he was destined to supersede, as John's own disciple, Banu, testified in the desert before Joseph's own eyes. He remembered how Banu saw John in a vision plunging Jesus into Jordan. Of trickery and cozenage there was none: for the men along these banks bore witness to the baptism that Joseph would have seen for himself if he had started a little earlier; nor could the Jesus who came to John for baptism be other than the young shepherd whom Joseph had seen, at the beginning of his novitiate, walking with the president in deep converse; the president apparently trying to dissuade him from some project. Joseph could not remember having heard anyone speak so familiarly or so authoritatively to the president, a man some twenty years older; and he wondered at the time how a mere shepherd from the hills could talk on an equality, as if they were friends, with the president. The shepherd, he now heard, was an Essene, but he lived among the hills, and Joseph remembered the striped shirt, the sheepskin and the long stride. His memory continued to unfold, and he recalled with singular distinctness and pleasure the fine broad brow curving upwards—a noble arch, he said to himself—the eyes distant as stars and the underlying sadness in his voice oftentimes soft and low, but with a cry in it; and he remembered how their eyes met, and it seemed to Joseph that he read in the shepherd's eyes a look of recognition and amity.