l and adventure, and
longed to revisit their old home again and hear the voices and see the
faces that were dear unto their youth. Therefore they went through such
parties as fell in their way where they sojourned at that time, and
journeyed back toward Ephesus again. For the good King Maximilianus was
become converted unto the new faith, and the Christians rejoiced because
they were no longer persecuted. One day as the sun went down, they came
to the cave in the Mount of Pion, and they said, each to his fellow, Let
us sleep here, and go and feast and make merry with our friends when the
morning cometh. And each of the seven lifted up his voice and said, It
is a whiz. So they went in, and lo, where they had put them, there lay
the bottles of strange liquors, and they judged that age had not impaired
their excellence. Wherein the wanderers were right, and the heads of the
same were level. So each of the young men drank six bottles, and behold
they felt very tired, then, and lay down and slept soundly.

When they awoke, one of them, Johannes--surnamed Smithianus--said, We are
naked. And it was so. Their raiment was all gone, and the money which
they had gotten from a stranger whom they had proceeded through as they
approached the city, was lying upon the ground, corroded and rusted and
defaced. Likewise the dog Ketmehr was gone, and nothing save the brass
that was upon his collar remained. They wondered much at these things.
But they took the money, and they wrapped about their bodies some leaves,
and came up to the top of the hill. Then were they perplexed. The
wonderful temple of Diana was gone; many grand edifices they had never
seen before stood in the city; men in strange garbs moved about the
streets, and every thing was changed.

Johannes said, It hardly seems like Ephesus. Yet here is the great
gymnasium; here is the mighty theatre, wherein I have seen seventy
thousand men assembled; here is the Agora; there is the font where the
sainted John the Baptist immersed the converts; yonder is the prison of
the good St. Paul, where we all did use to go to touch the ancient chains
that bound him and be cured of our distempers; I see the tomb of the
disciple Luke, and afar off is the church wherein repose the ashes of the
holy John, where the Christians of Ephesus go twice a year to gather the
dust from the tomb, which is able to make bodies whole again that are
corrupted by disease, and cleanse the soul from