see there is a wisdom surpassing wisdom, and it is out of this
fount of wisdom I am drawing when I speak to you these words.

"Child, I will not keep you any longer. Only to say this, and this is
the chiefest thing: never let your dream be taken from you. Keep it
unspotted from the world. In darkness and in tribulation it will go
with you as a friend; but in wealth and power hold fast to it, for then
is danger. Let not the mists of the world, the gay diversions, the
little trifles, draw you from glory.

"Remember!

"Si oblitus fuero tui Jerusalem,--If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,--

"Oblivioni detur dextera mea,--let my right hand forget her cunning--

"Adhaereat lingua mea faucibus meis, si non meminero tui,--if I do not
remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth--

"Si non proposuero Jerusalem, in principis laetitiae meae,--If I prefer
not Jerusalem above my chief joy.

"I shall now send a prayer to Heaven," he said, "to keep you safe in
the strange foreign ways, to protect you against wind and tempest,
against pestilence and sudden death, against the powers of darkness,
and Him who goes up and down the world for the ruin of souls."

And he turned to the high altar again, and now you'd hear his voice
loud and powerful, and now low and secret, and the bell struck, and the
acolyte intoned the responses, and all of a sudden he turned and spread
forth his hands.

"Ite! Let you go now. Missa est."

CHAPTER VIII

And so they set forth with their great train of red, snarling camels
and little patient donkeys and slender, nervous horses toward the
rising sun. Behind them the green hills of Palestine died out as a
rainbow dies out, and now there was sand before them and now bleak
mountains, and by day the wind was swift and hot and by night it was
black and cold. And moons were born and died...

And they passed through the land of the King of Armenia, and they
passed Ararat, the mountain where Noah brought his ark to anchor, and
where it still is, and where it can be seen still, but cannot be
reached, so cold and high and terrible is that mountain.

And they passed ruined Babel, that was built of Nimrod, the first king
of the world, and now is desolation. They passed it on a waning moon.
And out of the ruins the dragons came and hissed at them, and strange,
obscene birds flapped their wings in the air and cawed and pecked at
them, and over the desert the satyr called unto her mate...