The Seven Years of Seeking 111

much —it is doubtless as thou sayest; but
we who are older have lost the piercing
sight, and to us the sun is but a great and
wonderful splendour which dazzles us be-
fore we can descry either the Angels or the
Lamb.”

Meanwhile the Sea-farers ate and drank
and spread their raiment to dry, and some
were oppressed by the memory of the hard-
ships they had endured ; but Serapion, going
among them, cheered them with talk of the
Earthly Paradise, and of the joy it would be,
when they had won thither, to think of the
evil chances through which they had passed.
In a low tone he also spoke to them of
their small companion and his vision of the
sun.

“Truly,” he said, “it is as our Father
Abbot told us —he has not lost his baptis-
mal innocence, nor hath he lost all knowledge
of the heaven from which he came.”

As he was speaking thus, one of the
brethren rose up with a cry, and, shading his
eyes with his hand, pointed into the west.
Far away in the shimmer of the sea and the
clouds they perceived an outline of land, and
they changed their course a little to come to