t, but the other--it is bad luck
that it should have fallen on the left side. And yet, no; it is best so;
for if he--if it had damaged my right shoulder I could not write, and I
must--I must-before it is too late. A tablet and stylus; quick, quick!
And when I have written, good mother, close the tablet and seal it--close
and tight. Promise! Only one person may read it, he to whom it must
go.--Gibbus, do you hear, Gibbus?--It is for Philippus the leech. Take it
to him.--Your dream about a rose on your hump, if I read rightly, means
that peace and joy in Heaven blossom from our misery on earth.--Yes, to
Philippus. And listen my old school friend Christodorus, a leech too,
lives at Doomiat. Take my body to him--mind me now? He is to pack it with
sand which will preserve it, and have it buried by the side of my mother
at Alexandria. Joanna and the child--they can come and visit me there. I
have not much to leave; whatever that may cost. . . ."

"That is my affair, or the convent's," cried the abbess.

"Matters are not so bad as that," said the old man smiling. "I can pay
for my own share of the business; your revenue belongs to the poor, noble
Mother.--You will find more than enough in this wallet, good Gibbus. But
now, quick, make haste--the tablets."

When he had one in his hand, and a stylus for writing with, he thought
for some time, and then wrote with trembling fingers, though exerting all
his strength. How acutely he was suffering could be seen in his drawn
mouth and sad eyes, but he would not allow himself to be interrupted,
often as the abbess and the gardener entreated him to lay aside the
stylus. At last, with a deep sigh of relief, he closed the tablets,
handed them to the abbess, and said:

"There! Close it fast.--To Philippus the physician; into his own hand:
You hear, Gibbus?"

Here he fainted; but after they had bathed his forehead and wounds he
came to himself, and softly murmured: "I was dreaming of Joanna and the
poor child. They brought me a comic mask. What can that mean? That I have
been a fool all my life for thinking of other folks' troubles and
forgetting myself and my own family? No, no, no! As surely as man is the
standard of all things--if it were so, then, then folly would be truth
and right.--I, I--my desire--the aim to which my life was devoted. . . ."

He paused; then he suddenly raised himself, looked up with a bright light
in his eyes, and cried aloud with joy: "O Thou, most merciful S