reeable death to drown in a lake so salt that fish could not live
in it. True, one would escape being eaten by fishes; but if the mule be
carried away, he said to himself, drown I shall, long before I reach the
lake, unless indeed I strike out and swim--which, it seemed to him,
might be the best way to save his life--and if there be no current in
the lake I can gain the shore easily. But the first sight of the river
proved the vanity of his foreboding, for during the night it had emptied
a great part of its flood into the lake. The struggle in getting his
mule across was slight; still slighter when he returned with a sack of
lentils, a basket of eggs, some pounds of honey and many misgivings as
to whether he should announce this last commodity to the curator or
introduce it surreptitiously. To begin his probationship with a
surreptitious act would disgrace him in the eyes of the prior, whose
good opinion he valued above all. So did his thoughts run on till he
came within sight of a curator, who told him that sometimes, on the
first day of probationship, honey and figs were allowed.

The cooking of the food and the eating of it in the only cabin in which
there were conveniences for eating helped the time away, and Joseph
began to ask himself how long his cloistral life was going to endure,
for he seemed to have lost all desire to leave it, and had begun to turn
the different crafts over in his mind and to debate which he should
choose to put his hand to. Of husbandry he was as ignorant as a crow,
nor could he tell poisonous pastures from wholesome, nor could he help
in the bakery. At first venture there seemed to be no craft for him to
follow, since fish did not thrive in the Salt Lake and the fisherman's
art could not be practised, he was told, in the Jordan, for the Essenes
were not permitted to kill any living thing.

While laying emphasis on this rule, the curator cracked a flea under his
robe, but Joseph did not call his attention to his disobedience, but
bowed his head and left him to the scruple of conscience which he hoped
would awaken in him later.

Before this had time to come to pass, the curator called after him and
suggested that he might teach Hebrew to the four proselytes, whose
knowledge of that language had seemed to Mathias, their instructor,
disgracefully weak. They were all from Alexandria, like their teacher,
and read the Scriptures in Greek; but the Essenes, so said the curator,
must read the Scri