ese whiles. For what? Joseph asked. The ferryman did
not know; he told that John was not baptizing that morning, but for why
he did not know. As like as not he be waiting for the river to lower, he
said. At which Joseph had half a mind to leave Banu for John; but a
passenger was calling the ferryman from the opposite bank and he was
left with incomplete information and wandered on in doubt whether to
return in quest of the Baptist or make the disciple his shift.

The way pointed out to him lay through the desert, and to find Banu's
cave without guidance would not be easy, and after having found and
interrogated him the way would seem longer to return than to come. But,
having gone so far, he could not do else than attempt the hot weary
search. And it will be one! he said, as he picked his way through the
bushes and brambles that contrive to subsist somehow in the flat sandy
waste lying at the head of the lake. But as he proceeded into the desert
these signs of life vanished, and he came upon a region of craggy and
intricate rocks rising sometimes into hills and sometimes breaking away
and littering the plain with rubble. The desert is never completely
desert for long, and on turning westward as he was directed, Joseph
caught sight of the hill which he had been told to look out for--he
could not miss it, for the evening sun lit up a high scarp, and on
coming to the end of a third mile the desert began to look a little less
desert, brambles began again. Banu could not be far away. But Joseph did
not dare to go farther. He had been walking for many hours, and even if
he were to meet Banu he could not speak to him, so closely did his
tongue cleave to the sides of his mouth. But these brambles betoken
water, he said; and on coming round a certain rock bulging uncouth from
the hillside, he discovered a trickle, and a few paces distant, Banu,
ugly as a hyena and more ridiculous than the animal, for--having no
shirt to cover his nakedness--he had tressed a garland of leaves about
his waist! Yet not so ugly at second sight as at first, for he sees God,
Joseph said to himself; and he waited for Banu to rise from his knees.

Even hither do they pursue me, Banu's eyes seemed to say, while his
fingers modestly rearranged his garland; and Joseph, who began to dread
the hermit, begged to have the spring pointed out to him that he might
drink. Banu pointed to it, and Joseph knelt and drank, and after
drinking he was in better humour to