Here Dismas left the wanderers to their safe road, in order to return to the cave. When he turned back with good wishes for the rest of their journey, he was met by a look from the child's shining eyes. The beaming glance terrified him with the terror of wonderment. Never before had child or man looked at him with look so grateful, so glowing, so loving as this boy, his pretty curly head turned towards him, his hands stretched out in form of a cross, as if he wished to embrace him. Dismas's limbs trembled as if a flash of lightning had fallen at his side, and yet it was only a child's eyes. Holding his head with both hands, he fled, without knowing why he fled, for he would rather have fallen on his knees before the wondrous child. But something like a judgment seemed to thrust him forth, back into the horror of the desert.
For three days our fugitives rested in the oasis. Mary liked to sit on the grass under an olive-tree near the spring, and let the boy stretch his little soft arms to pluck a flower. He reached it, but did not break it from its stem; he only stroked it with his soft fingers.
And when the child fell asleep in the flowers, his mother kneeled before him and looked at him. And she gazed and gazed at him, and could not turn her face from him. Then she bent down and took one little plump, soft hand and shut it into hers so that only the finger-tips could be seen, and she lifted them to her mouth and kissed them, and could not cease kissing the white, childish hands, the tears running down her cheeks the while. And with her large dark eyes she looked out into the empty air—afraid of pursuers.
Joseph walked up and down near at hand between the trees and shrubs, but always kept mother and child in view. He was gathering dates for their further travels.
And now new faces rise before me as they wander farther into the barren desert, swept by the simoon, parched by the rays of the sun. Mary is full of peace, and wraps the child in her cloak so that he rests like a pearl in its shell. He nestles against her warm breast and sucks his fill. Whenever Joseph begins to be afraid, he feels the angel's wing fanning his face. And then he is full of courage and leads his loved ones past hissing snakes and roaring lions.
After many days they reached a fertile valley lying between rocky hills; a clear stream flowed through it. They rested under a hedge of thorns, and looked at a terribly wild mountain that rose high above the rest. It was bare and rocky from top to bottom, and deep clefts divided it in its whole length, so that the mountain seemed to be formed of upright blocks of stone, which looked like the fingers of two giant hands placed one on the other. A hermit was feeding his goat in the meadow, and Joseph went up to him and asked the name of the remarkable mountain.
"You are travelling through the district, and you don't know the mountain?" said the hermit. "If you are a Jew, incline your face to the earth and kiss it. It is the spot where eternity floated down from Sinai."
"That—the Mountain of the Law?"
"See how it stretches forth its fingers swearing. As true as God lives!"
Joseph bowed down and kissed the ground. Mary looked at the stony mountain with a thrill of awe. Little Jesus slept in the shade of the thorn-bush. The threatening rock and the lovely child. There dark menaces, and here——?