Oman did, at once, the only thing to be done. Lifting the body in his arms again, he carried it up the slope and back into the cave, where the fire still smouldered; and, laying the old man again on his grass bed, began to work over him. The day passed without his returning to a normal state. Oman knew that he was very ill, but whether with some disease, or simply as the result of old age and exposure, he could not tell. He warmed him, fed him, bathed his brows with water, and sometimes caught what he took to be a murmur of gratitude from the feeble lips. As night came on, he began to fear lest the stranger should make some attempt to leave him again; but the fear proved groundless. With the setting of the sun, a hot fever rose in the aged and world-weary body. The sick one’s mind wandered through far-off regions, and he talked, loudly, of fragmentary things. For Oman there was no sleep that night. With a great pity for the helplessness of his guest, he watched over him tenderly, doing for him those things that only a woman would have thought of. During that night of anxiety, there rose up in the heart of the hermit something that for many years he had been striving vainly to kill. It was the hunger for human love and affection, a desire for something to care for. Suddenly, this last had been given him. This old man, querulous, evil-eyed, unlovable bodily and mentally, had become sacred in his eyes, an object of trust for which he should be answerable; and, in this thought, all the starved affection in Oman’s nature welled up within him, till his heart was full and overflowing with pain and joy. On the evening of the second day of the stranger’s illness came the rains; and Oman knew that now, for the space of a month, at least, they were safe from intrusion. He and his charge were alone at the mercy of Nature; and, far from being dismayed at the prospect, Oman hailed it with joy. For him, who was now become veritably the mountain’s child, the old fear of the tempest was quite gone. Lightning and wind and rain were his brothers, when they sported across the peaks; and, since they brought him security against the impertinence of the people of the valleys, he blessed them anew for their presence. Thus, relieved from any untoward anxiety, he turned with all his strength and all his will to the assistance of the worn and world-weary creature whom chance or God had sent him to be his charge.