at
me. I was so afraid that I grew numb, I remember. Then he went to the
Room of Silence. When he came out his anger was gone, but he punished
me. He took me to the lake and caught me by the heels and swung me
around his head. When he loosened his fingers I shot into the air like a
light stone. The water flashed under me, and when I struck the surface
seemed solid. I thought it was death, for my senses went out, but Luke
waded in and dragged me back to the shore. However, his beard remained
pointed till he died."

He chuckled at the memory.

"Paul reproved Luke for what he had done. Paul was a big man, also, but
he was short, and his bigness lay in his breadth. He had no hair, and he
stood under Luke nodding so that the sun flashed back and forth on his
bald head. He told Luke that I might have been killed.

"'Better teach him sober manners now,' said Luke, 'than be a jester to
knock at the gate of God.'

"This Paul was wonderfully silent. He was born unhappy and nothing could
make him smile. He used to wander through the valley alone in the middle
of winter, half dead with cold and eating nothing. In those times, even
Luke was not strong enough to make him come home to us.

"I know that for ten days at one time he had gone without speech. For
that reason he loved to have Joseph with him, because Joseph understood
signs.

"But when silence left him, Paul was great in speech. Luke spoke in a
loud voice and Matthew beautifully, but Paul was terrible. He would fall
on his knees in an agony and pray to God for salvation for us and for
himself. While he kneeled he seemed to grow in size. He filled the room.
And his words were like whips. They made me think of all my sins. That
is how I remember Paul, kneeling, with his long arms thrown over his
head.

"Matthew died in the evening just as the moon rose. He was sitting
beside me. He put his hand in mine. After a while I felt that the hand
was cold, and when I looked at Matthew his head had fallen.

"Paul died in a drift of snow. We always knew that he had been on his
knees praying when the storms struck him and he would not rise until he
had finished the prayer.

"Luke bowed his head one day at the table and died without a sound--in
spite of all his strength.

"All these men have not really died out of the valley. They are here,
like mists; they are faces of thin air. Sometimes when I sit alone at my
table, I can almost see a spirit-hand like that of Matthew rise