ife, take this life!"--but even as
that cry was being uttered the lad was stayed in his fall, and he stood
on the air over the fiery well, as though the air had been turned to
solid crystal, and he ran on the air across the abyss to the brethren,
and Serapion caught him in his arms and folded him to his breast.

Then fell a deep stillness and dread upon the people, and what to do
they knew not; but the aged priest and the strong men who had flung the
boy into the gulf came to the brethren, and casting themselves on their
faces before the chorister, placed his foot on their heads. Wherefore
Serapion surmised that they now took him for a youthful god or spirit
more powerful than the evil spirit of the fire. Touching them, he
signed to them to arise, and when they stood erect he pointed to the
abyss, and gathering a handful of dust he threw it despitefully into
the well of fire, and afterwards spat into the depths. This show of
scorn and contumely greatly overawed the people, and (as was made known
afterwards) they looked on the Sea-farers as strong gods, merciful and
much to be loved.

Thrice did the Sea-farers hold Easter in that island, for there they
resolved to stay till they had learned the island speech, and freed the
people from the bondage of demons, and taught them the worship of the
one God who is in the heavens.

Now though the wind blew with an icy mouth on that high peak, in the
rocks of the crater it was sheltered, and warm because of the inner
fires of the mountain. So it was ordered that in turn one brother
should abide on the peak, and one in a cave midway down the mountain,
and one on the slopes where the palms and orange-trees are rooted among
the white-flowered sweet-scented broom. And each of these had a great
trumpet of bark, and when the first ray of light streamed out of the
east in the new day, the brother of the peak cried through his trumpet
with a mighty voice:

_Laudetur Jesus Christus,_
_May Christ Jesus be praised,_

and the brother of the cave, having responded,

_In saecula saeculorum,_
_World without end,_

cried mightily to the brother of the palms, "May Christ Jesus be
praised!"--and thus from the heights in the heavens to the shore of the
sea. So, too, when the last light of the setting sun burned out on the
western billows.

Thus was the reign of the spirit of evil abolished, and the mountain
consecrated to the praise of Him who made the hills and the isles of