appeared above the blackness of Monte Preclaro.
Benedetto tried again to free his feet from the serpents, and again the
leonine voice of the thunder threatened him.

"What am I doing?" he asked himself, trying to understand. "Why do I
wish to go down?" He no longer knew, and was obliged to make a mental
effort to recall the reason. That was it! He had decided to go down and
sleep, because one sure of the kingdom of heaven has no need of prayer.
Then, like the lightning flashing round him, came a flash within him:

"I am tempting God!"

The serpents pressed him tighter; the demon crept towards him on all
fours, up the rocky slope, all hellishly alive with fierce spirits; the
black flames burst forth in the openings of the great tower, the abyss
the while howling, triumphant! Then the sovereign roar of the thunder
rumbled through the clouds: "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God!"
Benedetto raised his face and his clasped hands towards heaven,
worshipping as best he might with the last glimmer of clouded
consciousness. He swayed, spread wide his arms, clutching the air.
Slowly he bent backwards, fell prostrate upon his back on the hillside,
and then lay motionless.

* * * * *

His body, motionless midst the rush of the thunderstorm, lay like an
uprooted trunk, among the straining gorse and the waving grass. His soul
must have been sealed by the central contact with the Being without time
and without space, for when Benedetto first regained consciousness he
had lost all sense of place and of time. His limbs felt strangely light;
he experienced a pleasant sensation of physical exhaustion, and his
heart was flooded with infinite sweetness. First upon his face, then
upon his hands, he felt innumerable slight touches, as though loving,
animate atoms of the air were gently tickling him; he heard a faint
murmur of timid voices round what seemed to be his bed. He sat up and
looked about him, dazed, but at peace; forgetful of the where and the
when, but perfectly at peace and filled with content by the quiet, inner
spring of vague love, which flowed through all his being, and overflowed
upon surrounding things, upon the sweet little lives about him, that
thus came to love him in turn. Smiling at his own bewilderment, he
recognised the where and the how. The when he could not recognise, nor
did he desire to do so. Neither did he question whether hours or minutes
had passed since his fall, so con