the parrots, though he could hear them, and he remained in
purblindness for some two or three weeks; but his sight returned, and he
said to Joseph: that is a palm-tree and that is a pepper-tree. Joseph
answered that he said truly and hastened across the garden to meet
Ecanus, for he desired to ask him privily if his father were out of all
danger; and the answer to his question was that Dan's life would pass
away in a swoon like the one he had just come out of, but he might swoon
many times--two or three times, perhaps oftener--before he swooned for
the last time. More than that Ecanus could not say. A silence fell
suddenly between them, and wondering what term of life his father had
still to traverse before he swooned into eternity, Joseph followed the
physician through the wilting alleys, seeking the shadiest parts, for
the summer was well-nigh upon them now.

At the end of one of these, out of the sun's rays, the old man lay
propped up among cushions, dreaming, or perhaps only conscious, of the
refreshing breeze that came and went away again. But he awoke at the
sound of their steps on the sanded paths, and raised his stick as a sign
to them to come to him, and, seeing that he wished to speak, Joseph
leaned over his chair, putting his ear close to his father's face, for
Dan's speech was still thick and often inarticulate. Thou wast nearly
going down in the storm, he said, and Joseph could hardly believe that
he heard rightly, for what could his father know of the storm on the
lake, he being in a deep swoon at the time beyond the reach of words. He
asked his father who had told him of the storm, but Dan could say no
more than that a voice had told him that there was a great storm upon
the lake and that Joseph was in it. Miracle upon miracle! Joseph cried,
and he related his escape from shipwreck; how when coming in Peter's
boat from the opposite shores the wind had risen, carrying the lake in
showers over the boat till all were wetted to their skins. But,
unmindful of these showers, Jesus had continued his teaching, even after
a great wave wrenched away a plank or part of one. Master, if the boat
be not staunched we perish, Peter said, for which Jesus rebuked Peter
and called them all to come forward and kneel closer about him. Kneel,
he said, your faces towards me, and forget the plank and remember your
sins. We could not do else but as we were bidden, and we all knelt about
him, our thoughts fixed as well as we were