The path they followed did not go straight up to the heights but sloped gently up the mountainside. The mist still shrouded everything, and indeed grew a little thicker. All three walked in silence, occupied with different thoughts. Much-Afraid was thinking of the promise the Shepherd so recently had given her, “Behold, I come quickly . . . and will give thee thy heart’s desire.” Suffering and Sorrow perhaps were thinking of the answer they had received to the question asked of him at parting. Whether or not this was so there was no indication, for they walked in complete silence, though the help they gave their lame companion was, had she noticed it, even more gentle and untiring than before.

Toward evening they came to another log cabin standing at the side of the path with the Shepherd’s secret mark inscribed upon the door, so they knew that they were to rest there for the night.

Once inside they noticed that someone must have been there quite recently, for a fire was burning brightly on the hearth and a kettle of water was singing on the hob. The table, too, was laid for three, and a supply of bread and fruit upon it. Evidently their arrival had been expected and these kindly preparations made, but of the one who had thus gone in the way before them there was no sign. They washed themselves and then sat down at the table, gave thanks, and ate of the prepared meal. Then, being weary, they lay down to rest and immediately fell asleep.

How long she had slept Much-Afraid could not tell, but she woke suddenly while it was still quite dark. Her companions slumbered peacefully beside her, but she knew that someone had called her. She waited in silence, then a Voice said: “Much-Afraid.”

“Behold me, here I am, my Lord,” she answered.

“Much-Afraid,” said the Voice, “take now the promise you received when I called you to follow me to the High Places, and take the natural longing for human love which you found already growing in your heart when I planted my own love there and go up into the mountains to the place that I shall show you. Offer them there as a Burnt Offering unto me.”

There was a long silence before Much-Afraid’s trembling voice spoke through the darkness.

“My Lord —am I understanding you right?”

“Yes,” answered the Voice. “Come now to the entrance of the hut and I will show you where you are to go.”

Without waking the two beside her, she rose silently, opened the door of the hut, and stepped outside. Everything was still shrouded in mist, and the mountains were completely invisible, swallowed up in darkness and cloud. As she looked, the mist parted in one place and a little window appeared through which the moon and one star shone brightly. Just below them was a white peak, glimmering palely. At its foot was the rocky ledge over which the great waterfall leaped and rushed down to the slopes below. Only the lip of rock over which it poured itself was visible, all below being shrouded in the mist.

Then came the Voice, “That is the appointed place.”

Much-Afraid looked, and replied, “Yes, Lord. Behold me —I am thy handmaiden, I will do according to thy word.”

She did not lie down again, but stood at the door of the hut waiting for daybreak. It seemed to her that the voice of the fall now filled the whole night and was thundering through her trembling heart, reverberating and shouting through every part and repeating again and again, “Take now the promise that I gave you, and the natural human love in your heart, and offer them for a burnt offering.”

With the first glimmer of dawn she bent over her sleeping companions and said, “We must start at once. I have received commandment to go up to the place where the great fall pours itself over the precipice.”

They rose immediately, and after hurriedly eating a meal to strengthen themselves, they started on their way. The path led straight up the mountainside toward the thunderous voice of the fall, though everything was still shrouded in mist and cloud and the fall itself remained invisible.

As the hours passed they continued to climb, though the path was now steeper than ever before. In the distance thunder began to roll and flashes of lightning rent the veil of mist. Suddenly, higher up on the path, they heard the sound of running feet, slipping and scraping on the rocks and stones. They stopped and pressed themselves closely to one side of the narrow path to allow the runners to pass, then out of the ghostly mist appeared first Fear, then Bitterness, followed by Resentment, Pride, and Self-Pity.

They were running as though for their lives, and as they reached the three women they shouted, “Back! Turn back at once! The avalanches are falling ahead, and the whole mountainside is shaking as though it will fall too. Run for your lives!”

Without waiting for an answer, they clattered roughly past and fled down the mountainside.

“What are we to do?” asked Suffering and Sorrow, apparently at a loss for the very first time. “Shall we turn back to the hut and wait until the avalanches and the storm are over?”

“No,” said Much-Afraid in a low, steady voice, speaking for the first time since she had called them to rise and follow her. “No, we must not turn back. I have received a commandment to go up to the place where the great fall pours over the rock.”

Then the Voice spoke close at hand. “There is a place prepared for you here beside the path. Wait there until the storm is over.”

In the rocky wall beside them was a little cave so low that it could be entered only if they stooped right down, and with just enough room for them to crouch inside. Side by side, they sat huddled together, then all of a sudden the storm burst over them in frightful fury. The mountains reverberated with thunder and with the sound of falling rocks and great avalanches. The lightning flashed incessantly and ran along the ground in sizzling flames.

Then the rains descended and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon the mountains until everything around them seemed to be shivering and quaking and falling. Flood waters rushed down the steep cliffs and a torrent poured over the rocks which projected over the cave so that the whole entrance was closed with a waterfall, but not a single drop fell inside the cave where the three sat together on the ground.

After they had been there for some time and the storm, far from abating, seemed to be increasing in strength, Much-Afraid silently put her hand in her bosom and drew out the leather bag which she always carried. Emptying the little heap of stones and pebbles into her lap, she looked at them. They were the memorial stones from all the altars which she had built along the way, from the time that she stood beside the Shepherd at the pool and allowed him to plant the thorn in her heart and all along the journey until that moment of crouching in a narrow cave upon which the whole mountain seemed to be ready to topple. Nothing was left to her but a command to offer up the promise on which she had staked her all, on the strength of which she had started on the journey.

She looked at the little pile in her lap and asked herself dully, “Shall I throw them away? Were they not all worthless promises which he gave me on the way here?” Then with icy fingers she picked up the first stone and repeated the first words that he had spoken to her beside the pool. “I will make thy feet like hinds’ feet and set thee upon thine High Places” (Hab. 3:19). She held the stone in her hand for a long time, then said slowly, “I have not received hinds’ feet, but I am on higher places than ever I imagined possible, and if I die up here, what does it matter? I will not throw it away.”

She put the stone back in the bag, picked up the next and repeated, “What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter” (John 13:7); and she gave a little sob and said, “Half at least of that is true, and who knows whether the other half is true or not —but I will not throw it away.”

Picking up the third stone, she quoted, “This is not unto death, but for the glory of God” (John 11:4). “Not unto death,” she repeated, “even though he says, ‘Offer the promise as a Burnt Offering’?” But she dropped the stone back into the bag and took the fourth. “Bread corn is bruised . . . but no one crushes it forever” (Isa. 28:28). “I cannot part with that,” she said, replaced it in the bag, and took the fifth. “Cannot I do with you as the Potter? saith the Lord” (Jer. 18:6). “Yes,” said she, and put it back into the bag.

Taking the sixth, she repeated, “O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colors . . .” (Isa. 54:11), then could go no farther but wept bitterly. “How could I part with that?” she asked herself, and she put it in the bag with the others, and took the seventh. “My sheep hear my voice, and they follow me” (John 10:27). “Shall I not throw this one away?” she asked herself. “Have I really heard his voice, or have I been deceiving myself all the time?”

Then as she thought of his face when he gave her that promise she replaced it in the bag saying, “I will keep it. How can I let it go?” and took the eighth. “Now shalt thou see what I will do” (Ex. 6:1). Remembering the precipice which had seemed so terribly impossible and how he had brought her to the top, she put the stone with the others and took the ninth. “God is not a man, that he should lie . . . hath he said and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?” (Num. 23:19).

For a very long time she sat trembling with that stone in her hand, but in the end she said, “I have already given the only answer possible when I told him, ‘If thou canst, thou mayest deceive me.’”

Then she dropped the icy-cold little pebble into the bag and took the tenth. “Thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, ‘This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left’” (Isa. 30:21). At that she shuddered, but after a while added, “Thou hast a little strength, and hast not denied my name . . . Hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown” (Rev. 3:8, 11).

Returning the tenth stone to the bag, after a long pause she picked up an ugly little stone lying on the floor of the cave and dropped it in beside the other ten, saying, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him” (Job 13:15). Tying up the bag again, she said, “Though everything in the world should tell me that they are worthless —yet I cannot part with them,” and put the bag once again in her bosom.

Sorrow and her sister had been sitting silently beside her watching intently as she went over the little heap of stones in her lap. Both gave a strange laugh, as though of relief and thankfulness, and said together, “The rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon the house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock” (Matt. 7:25).

By this time, the rain had ceased, the cataract was no longer pouring over the rocks, and only a light mist remained. The rolling of the thunder and the roar of the avalanches were fading away into the distance, and as they looked out of the cave, up from the depths beneath came through the wreaths of mist the clear, jubilant notes of a bird. It might have been brother to that which sang in the dripping woods at the foot of the High Places:

He’s gotten the victory, Hurrah!

He’s gotten the victory. Hurrah!

As the pure clear notes came floating up to them the icy coldness in the heart of Much-Afraid broke, then melted away. She pressed her hands convulsively against the little bag of stones as though it contained priceless treasure which she had thought lost, and said to her companions. “The storm is over. Now we can go on our way.”

From that place on, it was very steep going, for the path now went straight up the mountainside, so straight and steep that often Much-Afraid could hardly do more than crawl forward on hands and knees. All along she had hoped that the higher she went and the nearer she got to the High Places, the stronger she would become and the less she would stumble, but it was quite otherwise.

The higher they went, the more conscious she was that her strength was leaving her, and the weaker she grew, the more she stumbled. She could not help dimly realizing that this was not the case with her companions. The higher they went, the more vigorous and strong they seemed to become, and this was good, because often they had almost to carry Much-Afraid, for she seemed utterly spent and exhausted. Because of this they made very slow progress indeed.

On the second day they came to a place where a little hollow in the mountainside formed a tiny plateau. Here a spring bubbled out of the cliff and trickled across the hollow and down the side of the mountain in a little waterfall. As they paused to rest, the Voice said to Much-Afraid, “Drink of the brook at the side of the way and be strengthened.”

Stooping down at the spring where it bubbled up from between the rocks, she filled her mouth with the water, but as soon as she swallowed it she found it so burning and bitter that her stomach rejected it altogether and she was unable to retain it. She knelt by the spring, gasping for a moment, and then said very quietly and softly through the silence, “My Lord, it is not that I will not, but that I cannot drink of this cup.”

“There is a tree growing beside this spring of Marah,” answered the Voice. “Break off a piece of branch, and when you have cast it into the waters they will be sweetened.”

Much-Afraid looked on the other side of the spring and saw a little stunted thorn tree with but one branch growing on either side of the splintered trunk, like the arms of a cross. They were covered all over with long sharp spines.

Suffering stepped forward, broke off a piece of the thorn tree, and brought it to Much-Afraid, who took it from her hand and cast it into the water. On doing this she stooped her head again to drink. This time she found that the stinging, burning bitterness was gone, and though the water was not sweet, she could drink it easily. She drank thirstily and found that it must have contained curative properties, for almost at once she was wonderfully refreshed and strengthened. Then she picked up her twelfth and last stone there beside the water of Marah and put it into her bag.

After they had rested a little while she was able to resume the journey, and for a time was so much stronger that although the way was even steeper than before, she was not nearly so faint and exhausted. This greatly comforted her, for by that time she had only one desire in her heart, to reach the place appointed and fulfill the command which had been given her before her strength ebbed away altogether. On the third day, “they lifted up their eyes and saw the place afar off,” the great rock cliff and the waterfall, and continuing up the rocky path, at midday they came through the shrouding mist to the place which had been appointed.