‘God is speaking to us!’ Johann called to his followers, his voice clear over their questions. ‘Can you hear Him? Can you hear Him speaking through earthquake, wind and fire? Blessed be His Name. He is calling us to His service! I can hear Him. I can hear Him!’

‘Hear Him!’ the children repeated, the volume of their voices swelling like a chorus. ‘Hear Him!’

‘Earthquake?’ Isolde asked. ‘He said: earthquake, wind and fire?’

‘We’d better wait at the inn,’ Ishraq said uneasily. ‘We’d better not get on the boat. We’d better get under cover. If a storm is coming . . .’

Isolde turned with her, to go to the inn, when one of the children shouted, ‘Look! Look at that!’

Everyone looked where the child was pointing, to the steps of the quay where the water was splashing over the lower steps in an anxious rapid rhythm. As they watched, they saw an extraordinary thing. The tide was going out, ebbing at extraordinary speed, rushing like a river in spate, faster than any tide could go. The wet step dried in the bright sunshine as the next step was laid bare. Then, as the water receded, the green weed of the step beneath came into view, and the step below that, all the way down to the floor of the harbour. Water was pouring off the steps like a sudden waterfall, steps that no-one had seen since they were built in ancient times were now suddenly dry and in the open air, and in the harbour bed the sea was flowing backwards, running away from the land, falling away from the walls so that the depths were revealing all the secrets and becoming dry land once more.

It was a strange and hypnotic sight. Brother Peter joined the others as they crowded to the edge of the quay and gazed down as the water seeped away. The sea revealed more and more land as it crept further and further out. The horses on the deck neighed in terror as their boat grounded heavily on the harbour floor, other boats nearby hung on their ropes at the quayside wall or, further out in what had been deeper water, dropped and then rolled sideways as the sea fled away from them, leaving them abandoned and their anchors helplessly exposed, thrust naked into the silt – huge and heavy and useless.

‘And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided!’ Johann cried from the back of the crowd. There were screams of joy, and children crying with fear, as he walked through them all to stand on the brink of the quayside and look down into the harbour, where crabs were scuttling across the silt of the harbour floor and fish were slapping their tails in trapped pools of water. ‘And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided!’ he said again. ‘See – God has made the sea into dry land – just for us. This is the way to Jerusalem!’