So there came a night when the boy, rousing from a doze into which he had dropped, saw the sick man stretched upon his pallet motionless as he had not been for days.

The shepherd felt the forehead and the wrists and sank again into slumber.

At dawn he rose from the earth which had been his bed throughout this time and went forth to attend his flocks, and when he was gone, the sick man opened his eyes.
He looked up at the blackened rafters; he looked out at either door and frowned perplexed, first at the hills, then at the valley.

He raised his head and dropped it suddenly with great amazement and much weariness.

Finally he ventured to lift a wilted and fragile hand and looked at it.