place], and then take up your abode.” Now I thought that they would straightway take to flight, but they said unto me, “What is your work here?” And I said unto them, “The weaving of palm leaves,” and I plucked some leaves from the palms in the grove, and shewed them how to begin to work to plait baskets, and I said unto them, “Give them to the guardians, and they will give you bread.” And from that hour I left them, and everything which I had said unto them they performed with great persistence and diligence, and they remained there for three years and never came to me; and I continued to debate in my thoughts, saying, “What kind of work is theirs that they never come in to me to ask me for anything? The people that are afar off come to me, but these who are close by do not come to me, and they have gone nowhere else, except to the church to receive the Offering when they have leisure.”
Then I prayed to God and fasted for a whole week that He might shew me their work, and straightway I rose up and went to them that I might see how they were; and when I had knocked, they opened the door to me, and they saluted me, and then held their peace; and I prayed, and sat down. Then the elder of the men motioned to the younger, who went outside, and sat down, and he plaited ropes, and said nothing; and at the season of the ninth hour he knocked at the door, and the younger man came and made a sign to him, and he went forth and cooked a little food. And he made another sign to him, and he prepared a table with three bread cakes upon it, and then stood by in silence. Then I said, “Arise, let us eat”; and they drew nigh and we ate, and one of them brought an earthenware pitcher of water, and we drank. And when the evening had come, they spake to me, and said, “Art thou going away?” and I said, “No, I am going to pass the night here.” Then they laid down a palm-leaf mat for me on one side [of their cell], and they threw themselves down upon the bare earth on the other side of the cell by themselves. And when I had prayed to God to inform me concerning their toil, the roof was opened, and the place became as light as it was in the day time, but they did not see that light. Then, thinking that I was asleep, the elder man smote the younger, and they rose up, and girded up their loins, and spread out their hands to heaven; and I saw them, but they did not know that I could see them. And I saw the devils hovering about over the young man like flies, and some of them wished to settle on his eyes, and some on his mouth, and behold, the angel of the Lord was going round him, and was driving away from him the devils with a sword of fire; now the devils did not dare to
