ho cried out against this: let the flock
perish rather than Jesus should be deprived of Caesar. Wouldst have him
remain when he is a great ram? Manahem asked, and the others answered:
yes, for Jesus takes no thought for anything but Caesar, and the
brethren conferred together, and spent much thought in trying to
discover a remedy other than Caesar for Jesus' grief.

But one day Jesus said to the brethren: Caesar is coming into ramhood,
and I must take him away to the hills, he must come with me and join the
ewes. Art thou going to be our shepherd again? said they. If ye will
entrust the flock to me. My thoughts will never wander from it again.
Jesus spoke the words significantly, and many of the brethren believed
that he would prove himself to be the great shepherd that he was of
yore, but others said: his grief will break out upon him on the hills;
but these counsels were overruled by Manahem and Saddoc. Jesus, Saddoc
said, never smiles and his words are few, but he is himself again, and
the best shepherd that ever walked these hills is worse than he, so it
is said. He lost a few sheep, Manahem said, in the first days of his
great grief, but his mind is altogether now on the encouragement of the
flock and Amos is wearied of it and would return to the reading of the
Scriptures. Thou speakest well, Manahem, Saddoc returned, for it was in
his mind as it was in Manahem's that the sight of men and the sound of
men's voices were a torture to Jesus, and that he longed for solitude
and silence and the occupation of the flock.

The cenoby will never be the same again without our pet, some of the
brethren cried, but others said: it must be so. We'll go to see Caesar's
lambs, they cried, as he was being led away. There will be no lambs by
Caesar this spring, Jesus answered. He'll run with the ewes and that's
about all; for a ram is not fit for service till he is two years old.
Whereupon the distraction of Jesus' grief being removed from the
cenoby, the Essenes fell to talking again of the great schism and what
came of it. Are our brothers happier in wedlock than we are in celibacy?
was the question they often put to each other on the balcony; and a
sudden meeting of thoughts set them comparing the wives beyond Jordan
with the ewes of the hills. Which are the most fruitful? they asked
themselves; and it was averred that though twin lambs were of equal
worth, it might fall out in the strange destinies that beset human life
that on