Page:A child of the Orient (IA childoforient00vakarich).pdf/137

 He would pick me up and set me on his shoulder, as if I were a pitcher of water, and then, chanting his Gregorian chants, we would make the ascents. One day we were sitting on one of the big rocks surrounding the monastery. Miles below we could see the blue waters of the Marmora, and far beyond it the Asiatic coast of Turkey. The air was filled with the smell of the pine forest below. Father Arsenius had been telling me of the miracles performed by St George.

"It is curious, Father Arsenius," I commented, "that they should have built the monastery so high up. It is so difficult to get to, especially when one comes on foot, the way we did. How did they think of building it up here?"

"No one thought of it. The saint himself chose this spot. Don't you know about it, little one?"

I shook my head.

Father Arsenius's face changed, and there came into it the light which made him look almost holy. In a rapt tone he began: "It was years ago, in the fifteenth century, when a dream came to one of our monks, a holy man, chosen by the saint to do his bidding."

He crossed himself three times, raised his eyes to the blue above, and for some seconds was lost in his dreams.

"The saint appeared to our holy monk and