“My poor old patient has awakened. I must go and examine him.”
“He takes in the sick as well as the wandering,” said I to myself. “Surely the angels must protect him in some peculiar manner.”
John came forward again with an anxious countenance. “Alas!” said he, “the old man has rapidly changed. He fell into a soft slumber an hour ago, but he is now plainly dying. I knew he was very ill, for he has raved all day about his children and some magicians who wish to destroy them.”
At these words a fearful tremor seized me. I could not speak. I sprang past the young man, and in a moment was kneeling at the side of my father! I seized his withered hand and covered it with kisses.
“My father! my father! Do you not know your son, your only son?”
The young hermit looked on in tears.
The old man slowly opened his eyes and cast a bewildered look, first at me, and then at John.
“Yes—you are angels,” he said, “who have come to welcome my spirit into paradise.”
He breathed heavily. I sank down weeping. John [pg 55]came forward with a little basin of water. “There is no time to be lost,” said he in a low tone.
“Do you believe in God, and in Moses his lawgiver, and in the prophets his servants?”