dogs, the barbarians carried off all the Saints had prepared for their winter provision. They dragged them out of the church and stripped them, and made a circle round them with drawn swords, and eyes filled with fury, ready to kill them. Then, first they bade the priest stretch out his neck, and he, without a cry, though they cut him on the back with their blades, signed himself and whispered, 'Blessed be the Lord!' One blow cut him from the back-bone to the jaw, and cut through his ear; the next blow was from his shoulder to his cheek. So the holy man sank down modestly. The previous evening that admirable man at supper had said, 'How do we know whether we shall all live to meet again at table?' After that they killed him who lived with the old priest, and then the boy who served them." Then the Arabs, brandishing their bloody weapons, rushed after the monks, who scattered in all directions, some escaping down the valley, and some, Nilus included, flying up the all but inaccessible rocks of Sinai, whither the Arabs did not trouble themselves to pursue them. Nilus escaped reluctantly, for his boy was in the hands of the barbarians. "I stood bewildered," he says "not knowing what to do, and bound to the child by my bowels of love, and unable to fly till the boy made signs to me with his eyes to escape; but I could hardly persuade myself to do so. My feet went forward and dragged my body along, I hardly knew how, for my heart would not leave him, and I turned my face ever and anon to look at the boy. Thus I reached the mountain, following the others, and saw my poor boy carried away, unable to look about him as he would, but furtively casting glances towards where I was. Such is the tie of nature, that separation of bodies does not break it, but it is cruelly wrenched. The cow which is led away lows piteously and often, always turning its head towards the dear calf, and by its eyes proving the intensity of its grief. And I, when I had reached, I know not how, the mountain top, with my mind one way and my body elsewhere, I tried still to see my son, but I could not, the distance was too great. Then I burst into prayer to God, weeping for my captive son and the murdered saints."