102 The Seven Years of Seeking

That we could not answer, for it seemed
to us that such a one would lose heart and
hope in the roofless waste, with never a
stone or tree, nor any shadow save cloud’s,
and turn back dismayed; but Serapion re-
plied: “To me it appears, your Discretion,
that so bold a mariner, if years failed him
not, might win to the Earthly Paradise.”

“So have I heard,” said the Bishop.
“Yet here would you be sailing into the
west, and for a certainty the Paradise of God
was in the east. How would you give a
reasonable account of this?”

But we could make no reply, for we
knew not; nor Serapion more than we.

““ Now, watching the sea,” said the Bishop,
“you have marked the ships, how they go.
When they come to you, they first show the
mast-top, then the sail, and last the body of
the ship, and perchance the sweep of the oars ;
reverse-wise when they depart from you, you
first fail to see the body of the ship, and then
the sail, but longest you hold in sight the
mast-top, or it may be a bright streamer flying
therefrom, or a cross glittering in the light —
though these be but small things compared
with the body of the ship. Is it not sor”