The sun, as it rose higher and higher, blazed down upon the rocks, which began to radiate their heat, and the hermit's dwelling was suffocatingly hot.

The pain of the poor man's wound increased, his fever was greater, and he was very thirsty.

There stood the jug, which Paulus had given him, but it was long since empty, and neither Paulus nor Hermas had come back.

He listened anxiously to the sounds in the distance, and fancied at first that he heard the Alexandrian's footstep, and then that he heard loud words and suppressed groans coming from his cave.

Stephanus tried to call out, but he himself could hardly hear the feeble sound, which, with his wounded breast and parched mouth, he succeeded in uttering.