Dorotheus thought that what came upon him was that listlessness. He had known it before, and the homesickness and the craving for red pottage, known them and valorously fought them, as witnessed scars upon his shoulders no less than strong wrestlings in prayer stored up—somewhere. These moods did not come so often now, and he was prepared to fight them when they came. But this time, do what he would, the listlessness clung. Moreover, he began to see dæmons. He forced himself to work in the garden, though his arms trembled, and the palm trees seemed to be walking to and fro. Then came common sense in a flash. “And I have seen soldiers by the hundred take fever—!” But immediately upon that he merely saw and heard dæmons again; moreover, he grew heated and began to break down the vines and the bushes, “do nothing” having given place to “do everything.” He would carry the palm grove up to the cave, then there would be no hot sand to cross!
Dorothea studied the four Gospels and prayed, stretched before the cross. She worked at basket-making, and finished the ditch in the garden that carried the water where she would. When the sun began to sink she walked in the desert, she and her long shadow on the sand. Even I and the cock would stay by the grass and the black earth and the water.
As she turned, Arla the jackal came out of the oasis. Welcome, much alarmed, took to a tree, the bell of Even I began to jangle. But Arla left them both alone and went straight to Dorothea. He was only a greyish-yellow, sizable, part dog, part wolf, and she presently saw that there was no wolf to-day. “Dog, dog! what is it?” she asked.
Arla went from her toward the palms, came back and pulled at her robe. “What is it? What has happened?” But he could not tell her, could only tell that something had happened, and that she should come with him. After awhile, she, being “moderate,” went.
Dark was now rushing over the desert. The oasis belt, through which she had never gone, was darker than dark, thick with tree and bush and vine, uneven-floored, with sudden threads and pools of water. Small, living things rustled and scampered. Arla went through easily; the hermit behind him now struck against trees, now stumbled and fell. But some old ease of movement through woodland coming up from the very deep past, she followed on through the dark.
The palms thinned and they came into what she recognized must be the other hermit’s garden, then they stepped out of the oasis. Here was the star-roofed desert, and a slope of sand to such a ridge as that in which she had her cell. With a loping gait the jackal mounted this slope and she followed. Before she reached the cave she heard Dorotheus raving in fever.
Sometimes anchorites went mad. “Is there here a madman?” thought Dorothea, and her heart beat harder. But she followed Arla, and saw that the hermit lay outside of the cave and paid no attention to her footsteps, nor to the jackal who now stood whining beside him. Here, under open sky, was yet pale light. She saw for the first time the look of the hermit Dorotheus. Stooping, she put her hand upon his bare, outflung arm. The touch burned her. He was tossing from side to side, talking to men, his companions, crying out about great rivers they must surely reach.
The hermit from beyond the oasis went into his cave, felt for and found the water jar and the hollowed gourd beside it, came forth and kneeling gave him to drink, then laved with the cool fluid his burning limbs. His ravings sank, he lay muttering. Dorothea took the water jar down to the garden, found the spring he used, drew water, and bore the jar upon her shoulder up the slope. Now was only starlight, and the voice and heavy turnings of the sick man.
She sat upon the sand at a little distance, and when the fever mounted she gave him water, and bathed with water face and breast. For the rest she watched the stars and said her prayers. Arla had gone down to his prowling in the desert, under the palm trees, in the thickets. She prayed kneeling, she prayed stretched upon her face. The night wore by, she heard across the palm tops the crowing of her cock. Here came the light—and now what must she do? “Lord, Lord, Thy will?”
She might find the first neighbour cell of this laura, summon its inmate to come nurse his fellow-hermit, or if he would not do that urge him to go bring help from the monastery. Doubtless that was the best thing to do, even imperatively the thing to do. Monk would help monk, and the nun might return to her cave. If there were sin in this night’s contact prayer and penance might atone.... To find the next hermitage—that might be an all day’s work! She did not know how this laura was placed—all day, and more than all day in the wild ocean of the desert. Then to make that anchorite attend, to make him follow as she had followed Arla! If he were of the intenser saintliness, hard work would a woman have to make him know that she was not a prince among dæmons, masking so! “Retro me, Sathanas! Retro me, Sathanas!” If such an one came to see that she was human, even nun as he was monk, then still might be as great horror, as obdurate a stopping of eyes and ears. The very saintly had almost all vowed never to view again, never to speak again with a woman. If she found one who perforce listened, he might not conceive it his duty to interrupt his penance, leave his cell.... Nevertheless, she must go in search of a man to come—