the stones on the slope of the mountain,
and when he had found them brought them to Jesus; another, climbing
up higher and higher, searched musingly for the limits of the blue
distance, and failing, climbed up higher on to new, sharp-pointed rocks.
John found a beautiful little blue lizard among the stones, and smiling
brought it quickly with tender hands to Jesus. The lizard looked with
its protuberant, mysterious eyes into His, and then crawled quickly
with its cold body over His warm hand, and soon swiftly disappeared with
tender, quivering tail.

But Peter and Philip, not caring about such amusements, occupied
themselves in tearing up great stones from the mountain, and hurling
them down below, as a test of their strength. The others, attracted by
their loud laughter, by degrees gathered round them, and joined in their
sport. Exerting their strength, they would tear up from the ground an
ancient rock all overgrown, and lifting it high with both hands, hurl it
down the slope. Heavily it would strike with a dull thud, and hesitate
for a moment; then resolutely it would make a first leap, and each time
it touched the ground, gathering from it speed and strength, it would
become light, furious, all-subversive. Now it no longer leapt, but flew
with grinning teeth, and the whistling wind let its dull round mass pass
by. Lo! it is on the edge--with a last, floating motion the stone would
sweep high, and then quietly, with ponderous deliberation, fly downwards
in a curve to the invisible bottom of the precipice.

"Now then, another!" cried Peter. His white teeth shone between his
black beard and moustache, his mighty chest and arms were bare, and
the sullen, ancient rocks, dully wondering at the strength which lifted
them, obediently, one after another, precipitated themselves into the
abyss. Even the frail John threw some moderate-sized stones, and Jesus
smiled quietly as He looked at their sport.

"But what are you doing, Judas? Why do you not take part in the game?
It seems amusing enough?" asked Thomas, when he found his strange friend
motionless behind a great grey stone.

"I have a pain in my chest. Moreover, they have not invited me."

"What need of invitation! At all events, I invite you; come! Look what
stones Peter throws!"

Judas somehow or other happened to glance sideward at him, and Thomas
became, for the first time, indistinctly aware that he had two faces.
But before he could thoroughly grasp the fact,