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'Ah! shame on my worldly-mindedness! I had forgotten all this time to inquire for him. How is the youth, reverend sir? 'Whom do you mean? 'Philammon, our spiritual son, whom we sent down to you three months ago, said Pambo. 'Risen to honour he is, by this time, I doubt not? 'He? He is gone! 'Gone? 'Ay, the wretch, with the curse of Judas on him.
It was whispered when the monks seldom and cautiously did whisper together in their lonely walks that he had been once a great man; that he had come from a great city perhaps from Rome itself. And the simple monks were proud to think that they had among them a man who had seen Rome. At least, Abbot Pambo respected him.
Abbot Pambo, as well as Arsenius, had been dead several years; the abbot's place was filled, by his own dying command, by a hermit from the neighbouring deserts, who had made himself famous for many miles round by his extraordinary austerities, his ceaseless prayers, and his loving wisdom.
So we may as well change the subject for the present, and he began overwhelming the old man with inquiries about himself, Pambo, and each and all of the inhabitants of the Laura to which Arsenius, to the boy's infinite relief, answered cordially and minutely, and even vouchsafed a smile at some jest of Philammon's on the contrast between the monks of Nitria and those of Scetis.
Send us news of thy welfare by some holy mouth. Come. Silently they paced together down the glen to the lonely beach of the great stream. Pambo was there already, his white hair glittering in the rising moon, as with slow and feeble arms he launched the light canoe.
Yet, certainly, when Theophilus sent up a messenger from Alexandria, rousing every Laura with the news of the sack of Rome by Alaric, did not Pambo take him first to the cell of Aufugus, and sit with him there three whole hours in secret consultation, before he told the awful story to the rest of the brotherhood?
Peter stalked after them with a sufficiently important air to the little hut, and there taking from his bosom Cyril's epistle, handed it to Arsenius, who sat long, reading and re-reading with a clouded brow, while Pambo watched him with simple awe, not daring to interrupt by a question lucubrations which he considered of unfathomable depth.
The names of Pambo and Arsenius, however, seemed to pacify him at once; and the trembling youth was ushered into the presence of him who in reality, though not in name, sat on the throne of the Pharaohs.
A deep sigh was the only answer. The speaker laid down his hoe, and placing his hand affectionately on the shoulder of Aufugus, asked again 'What is it, my friend? I will not claim with you my abbot's right to know the secrets of your heart: but surely that breast hides nothing which is unworthy to be spoken to me, however unworthy I may be to hear it! 'Why should I not be sad, Pambo, my friend?
But for me, my friend, though I doubt not that such things are, it is the day, and not the night, which brings revelations. 'How, then? 'Because by day I can see to read that book which is written, like the Law given on Sinai, upon tables of stone, by the finger of God Himself. Arsenius looked up at him inquiringly. Pambo smiled.
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