nce it was Paul's wish to adjourn it. So Barnabas
had always spoken, for he was a weak man, and Paul acknowledged to
himself that he too was a weak man in those days.

Laos seemed to love Barnabas as a mother, and Laos and Eunice were
received by me into the faith, Paul said. On these words his thoughts
floated away and he became absorbed in recollections of the house in
Lystra. The months he had spent with these two women had been given to
him, no doubt, as a recompense for the labours he had endured to bring
men to believe that by faith only in our Lord Jesus Christ could they be
saved. He would never see Lystra again with his physical eye, but it
would always be before him in his mind's eye: that terrible day the Jews
had dragged him and Barnabas outside the town rose up before him. Only
by feigning death did they escape the fate of Stephen. In the evening
the disciples brought them back. Laos and Eunice sponged their wounds,
and at daybreak they left for Derbe, Barnabas saying that perhaps God
was angry at their delay in Lystra and to bring them back to his work
had bidden the Jews stone them without killing them. Eunice was not sure
that Barnabas had not spoken truly, and Paul remembered with gratitude
that she always put his mission before herself. Thou'lt be safer, she
said, in Derbe, and from Derbe thou must go on carrying the glad tidings
to the ends of the earth. But thou must not forget thy Galatians, and
when thou returnest to Lystra Timothy will be old enough to follow thee.
He had fared for ever onwards over seas and lands, ever mindful of his
faithful Galatians and Eunice and her son whom she had promised to him,
and whom he had left learning Greek so that he might fulfil the duties
of amanuensis.

The silence of the gorge and the murmur of the brook enticed
recollections and he was about to abandon himself to memories of his
second visit to Lystra when a voice startled him from his reverie, and,
looking round, he saw a tall, thin man who held his head picturesquely.
I presume you are our guest, and seeing you alone, I laid my notes aside
and have come to offer my services to you. Your services? Paul repeated.
If you desire my services, Mathias replied; and if I am mistaken, and
you do not require them, I will withdraw and apologise for my intrusion.
For your intrusion? Paul repeated. I am your guest, and the guest of the
Essenes, for last night Timothy and myself were assailed by the Jews. By
the Jews?