llustration: _A gaunt, dark figure, far up in the blue Asian sky_]

Now, in the third year of his testimony, as Basil was rapt in devotion,
with hands and face uplifted to the great silent stars, an Angel,
clothed in silver and the blue-green of the night, stood in front of
him in the air, and said: "Descend from thy pillar, and get thee away
far westward; and there thou shalt learn what is for thy good."

Without delay or doubt Basil descended, and stole away alone in the
hush before the new day, and took the winding ways of the hills, and
thereafter went down into the low country of the plain to seaward.

After long journeying among places and people unknown, he crossed the
running seas which part the eastern world from the world of the west,
and reached the City of the Golden Horn, Byzantium; and there for four
months he lived on a pillar overlooking the city and the narrow seas,
and cried his cry of doom and torment. At the end of the fourth month
the Angel once more came to him and bade him descend and go further.

So with patience and constancy of soul he departed between night and
light, and pursued his way for many months till he had got to the
ancient city of Treves. There, among the ruins of a temple of the
heathen goddess Diana, he found a vast pillar of marble still erect,
and the top of this he thought to make his home and holy watch-tower.
Wherefore he sought out the Bishop of the city and asked his leave and
blessing, and the Bishop, marvelling greatly at his zeal and austerity,
gave his consent.

The people of Treves were amazed at what they considered his madness;
but they gave him no hindrance, nor did they molest him in any way.
Indeed, in no long time the fame of his penance was noised abroad, and
multitudes came, as they had come at Ancyra, to see with their own eyes
what there was of truth in the strange story they had heard.
Afterwards, too, many came out of sorrow for sin and an ardent desire
of holiness; and others brought their sick and maimed and afflicted, in
the hope that the Hermit might be able to cure their ailments, or give
them assuagement of their sufferings. Many of these, in truth, Basil
sent away cleansed and made whole by the virtue of his touch or of the
blessing he bestowed upon them.

Now, though there were many pillar-hermits in the far eastern land,
this was the first that had ever been seen in the west, and after him
there were but few others.

A strange and well-ni