"Why this mercy?"asked Judas Iscariot. Then the angel said to him, "Remember the leper inJoppa," and poor Judas recalled how once when the hot wind, called thesirocco, swept through the streets of Joppa, and he saw a naked leper bythe wayside, sitting in agony from the heat and the drifting sand, Judashad thrown his cloak over him for a shelter and received his thanks. Inreward for this, the angel now told him, he was to have, once a year, anhour's respite from his pain; he was allowed in that hour to fling himselfon an iceberg and cool his burning heat as he drifted through the northernseas. Then St. Brandan bent his head in prayer; and when he looked up, thehour was passed, and Judas had been hurried back into his torments.It seems to have been only after seven years of this wandering that theyat last penetrated within the obscure fogs which surrounded the Isle ofthe Saints, and came upon a shore which lay all bathed in sunny light. Itwas a vast island, sprinkled with precious stones, and covered with ripefruits; they traversed it for forty days without arriving at the end,though they reached a great river which flowed through the midst of itfrom east to west. There an angel appeared to them, and told them thatthey could go no farther, but could return to their own abode, carryingfrom the island some of those fruits and precious stones which werereserved to be distributed among the saints when all the world should bebrought to the true faith.
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