(Exit Probus. A pause. Paul starts to his feet.)
I must speak with him.
(Exit Paul hurriedly.)
EUNICE: Who now believes the shepherd’s story?
apoLLos: None was pledged to belief or unbelief. Paul will tell us—
EUNICE: Ye have seen how weary he is.
aquiLa: But he cannot go on to Rome leaving us in doubt.
EUNICE: In doubt! In doubt! Ye have heard him foretell his death in Spain, and still ye doubt! Hearken! He returns. . . . Not a word!
ApoLLOS: But we must hear the truth from him.
(Enter Paul. He goes to Timothy.)
Paul: So, my beloved son, after losing each other in the rocks thou wert able to find thy way through twenty leagues of hills. How long did the journey take thee?
TIMOTHY: Two days.
PAUL (to Eunice): Thou couldst hardly have known thy son after so hard a journey.
eUNICE: After a few hours' rest I sent him forth to the hills again to seek thee.
Paul: Timothy outwalks me, great traveller though I be; yet to send him forth again after a long journey seems— But I'll not reprove anybody to-night. We are here united belike for the last time, mayhap never to see each other's faces again. (To disguise his emotion.) So, Timothy, after a few hours' sleep thou wert sent out on the hills to search for me?
TIMOTHY: To get no news of thee from the shepherds till I met one coming from Kerith who said he had seen thee, or one like thee, with Jesus of Nazareth.
PAUL: And what said he of him?
TIMOTHY: That he was a man of abrupt speech and seldom, yet with a kindly smile when he was met on the hills.
Paul: We seem to have spoken but once whilst on our journey.
Apollos: After losing Timothy thou camest upon a shepherd?
Paul: No. But it is a long story, and I know not how to tell it all.
AQuila: A few words—when and where?
PAUL: One moment Timothy was by me, the next he was gone, and I wandered calling in the darkness, finding myself suddenly
