to the brothers who were passing into the village
from their daily work, and presented Joseph as one who, shocked by the
service of the Sadducees in the Temple, had come desiring admission to
their order. At the news of a new adherent, the faces of the brothers
became joyous; for though the rule seems hard when related, they said,
in practice, even at first, it seems light enough, and soon we do not
feel it at all.

They were now on the outskirts of the village, and pointing to a cabin
the Essene told Joseph that he would sleep there and enter on the morrow
upon his probationship. But, Father, may I not hear more? If a brother
be found guilty of sin, will he be cast out of the order? The president
answered that if one having been admitted to their community committed
sins deserving of death, he was cast out and often perished by a most
wretched fate, for being bound by oath and customs he could not even
receive food from others but must eat grass, and with his body worn by
famine he perishes. Unless, the president added, we have pity on him at
the last breath and think he has suffered sufficiently for his sins.

CHAP. VII.

The hut that Joseph was bidden to enter was the last left in the cenoby
for allotment, four proselytes having arrived last month.

No better commodity have we for the moment, the curator said, struck by
the precarious shelter the hut offered--a crazy door and a roof that let
the starlight through at one end of the wall. But the rains are over, he
added, and the coverlet is a warm one. On this he left Joseph, whom the
bell would call to orison, too tired to sleep, turning vaguely from side
to side, trying to hush the thoughts that hurtled through his clear
brain--that stars endure for ever, but the life of the palm-tree was as
the life of the man who fed on its fruit. The tree lived one hundred
years, and among the Essenes a centenarian was no rare thing, but of
what value to live a hundred years in the monotonous life of the cenoby?
And in his imagination, heightened by insomnia, the Essenes seemed to
him like the sleeping trees. If he remained he would become like them,
while his father lived alone in Galilee! Dan rose up before him and he
could find no sense in the assurances he had given the president that he
wished to be admitted into the order. He seemed no longer to desire
admission, and if he did desire it he could not, for his father's sake,
accept the admission. Then why had he ta