o the hermit's mind, for the landscape
was gloomy enough already, and an hour hence he would be stumbling over
a panther in the dark, and the sensation of teeth clutching at his
throat and of hind claws tearing out his belly banished from his mind
all thoughts of the unpleasantness of passing a night in a narrow cave
with Banu, whom he helped to close the entrance with a big stone and to
pile up other stones about the big stone making themselves safe, so Banu
said, from everything except perhaps a bear.

The thought of the bear that might scrape aside the stone kept Joseph
awake listening to Banu snoring, and to the jackals that barked all
night long. They are quarrelling among themselves, Banu said, turning
over, for the jackals succeeded in waking him, quarrelling over some
gazelle they've caught. A moment after, he was asleep again, and Joseph,
despite his fear of the wild beasts, must have dozed for a little while,
for he started up, his hair on end. A bear! a bear! he cried, without
awakening Banu, and he listened to a scratching and a sniffling round
the stones with which they had blocked the entrance to the cave. Or a
panther, he said to himself. The animal moved away, and then Joseph lay
awake hour after hour, dropping to sleep and awakening again and again.

About an hour after sunrise, Banu awakened him and asked him to help him
to roll the stones aside; which Joseph did, and as soon as they were in
the dusk he turned out of his pockets a few crusts and some cheese made
out of ewe's milk, and offered to share the food with his host; but
Banu, pointing to a store of locusts, put some of the insects into his
mouth and told Joseph that his vow was not to eat any other food till
God called him forth to preach; which would be, he thought, a few days
before the judgment: a view that Joseph did not try to combat, nor did
he eat his bread and cheese before him, lest the sight of it should turn
the prophet's stomach from the locusts. It was distressing to watch him
chewing them; they were not easy to swallow, but he got them down at
last with the aid of some water obtained from the source, and during
breakfast his talk was all the while of the day of judgment and the
anger of God, who would destroy Israel and build up another nation that
would obey him. It would be three or four days before the judgment that
God would call him out to preach, he repeated; and Joseph was waiting to
hear how far distant were these days? A