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 month, a year, belike some years, for God’s patience is great.  He stopped speaking suddenly, and throwing out his arms he cried out:  he has come, he has come!  He whom the world is waiting for.  Baptize him!  Baptize him!  He whom the world is waiting for has come.

But for whom is the world waiting?  Joseph asked; and Banu answered:  hasten to the Jordan, and find him whom thou seekest.

CHAP.  IX.

I shall pray that the Lord call thee out of the desert to join thy voice with those already preaching, Joseph cried; and the hermit answered him:  let us praise the Lord for having sent us the new prophet!  But do thou hasten to John, he called after Joseph, who ran and walked alternately, striving up every hillock for sight of the ferryman’s boat which might well be waiting on this side for him to step on board; Joseph being in a hurry, it would certainly be lying under the opposite bank, the ferryman asleep in it, and so soundly that no cries would awaken him.

But Joseph’s fortune was kinder than he anticipated, for on arriving at the Jordan he found himself at the very spot where the ferryman had tied his boat and—­napping—­awaited a passenger.  So rousing him with a great shout, Joseph leaped on board and told the old fellow to pull his hardest; but having been pulling across the Jordan for nigh fifty years, the ferryman was little disposed to alter his stroke for the pleasure of the young man, who, he remembered, had not paid him over-liberally yester-evening; and in the mid-stream he rested on his oars, so that he might the better discern the great multitude gathered on yon bank.  For baptism, he said; or making ready to go home after baptism, he added; and letting his boat drift, sat discoursing on the cold of the water,