"Ma chere, I serve a man who multiplied the loaves and fishes"--he smiled, nodding at the pool, where the swirls of the carps' feeding were still subsiding--"who healed the sick and raised the dead. Shall I be astonished that the master of eternity has brought a young woman through the stones of the earth to do His will?" Well, I reflected, it was better than being denounced as the whore of Babylon."