he great main road to Jericho, that
descends down and down through the bare rolling hills of the
wilderness to the fair plain of the Jordan and the shores of the
Dead Sea. For the first few miles they sped on in silence with
clasped hands, the night wind rushing against their faces, and no
sound coming to their ears but the occasional whine of the hungry
hyenas, prowling over the stony, starlit hills. In the man's breast
swelled an exaltation beyond all words: it lifted him up so, that
his feet seemed flying over the rugged ground without touching it;
the night-wind filled his veins with fire: his brain seemed alight
and glowing. For years past the bare stone walls of his monk's cell
had given him pictures painted by his fevered fancy of such a walk
as this through starlit, open spaces--a walk to life and freedom.
For years his hot, caged feet had paced the stone cell floor,
aching to pass the threshold; and for the last month ever since
from amongst the olive-trees he had seen the fair Jewish girl pass
by, a new vision had come upon those white-washed walls to add its
torture to the rest. Evening after evening he had stolen out at
sunset to see her pass, as she came and went from the little
cluster of Jewish houses on the ridge beyond the monastery and
watched the sunlight play upon her brows and hair. Could this
thing, so divinely beautiful, be the creation of the devil to
destroy men's souls? His reason revolted against it. If so, the
warm sunlight and radiant sky and air, the flowers and the purple
hills, his weary eyes strained out to must be also the devil's
work, for all these things were akin, and the woman passing amongst
them was but the masterpiece made by the same hand.

"Say," he had said wearily, one night, to a monk passing him like a
silent shadow on his way to his cell. "Is all the world the work of
the devil?"

"Nay, brother, what blasphemy!" returned the other, startled beyond
measure. "It is all the work of God" and Nicholas had passed into
his cell well pleased. And the next evening he had called softly to
the masterpiece of the Creator, as she went by, and the girl,
startled and fearful at first, had spoken a few words out of sheer
pity for the hungry, lonely soul looking out so wistfully at her;
and then how soon had come other meetings, the plan to escape--that
final vision which had seemed to justify him,--and now the flight!

"Will the boat be there! will they wait for us?" he asked eagerly