A very curious story of this journey is told by the saint in his Confession. Having feasted on the pork, after long hunger, the natural result was an attack of night-mare, that same night, which he says seemed to him in his dream like Satan rolling a great rock upon his chest. In an ecstasy of fear he screamed out "Elias, Elias!" and thereupon he says, "Lo! the splendour of the sun shone on me, and dispelled all the burden on me." Dr. Lanigan says this is evidence of his invoking a saint. There can be little doubt that every well-instructed Christian of the time would have invoked a saint, but it seems probable here that this was not an invocation of the prophet Elias, but an invocation common perhaps among the heathen and half-converted Roman settlers, of "Helios!" the sun, which had passed into an exclamation; and this will explain the passage which immediately follows about the sun at once shining upon him. Patrick at this time was not well instructed in Christianity, and he had been stolen as a thoughtless boy from his home, before his education was complete, or his mind had turned to the truths of Christianity. In his old age he related this anecdote of himself, but it is impossible to conclude from the context what he meant by the exclamation. S. Patrick reached home about the year 409, and remained there for a while. He was then aged twenty-two. Perhaps it was soon after this that he went to Tours and studied for four years. He then returned home to Bonona, and was again made captive, probably by a roving band of Frank marauders; but his captivity was of short duration, lasting only sixty days. His friends entreated him not to leave them, after all he had endured, but he relates that he saw in a vision of the night a man named Victoricius[56] bringing him a letter, at the head of which were the words, "The voice of the Irish." And then he thought he heard the cry of many persons from one of the Irish forests, where they strayed in darkness and error, "We entreat thee, O holy boy, come and walk still in the midst of us!" And greatly affected, Patrick awoke. [56] Probably S. Victricius, one of the apostles of the Morini, afterwards bishop of Rouen.