Isolde’s cold hand crept into Luca’s. ‘I’m afraid.’

Luca was breathless with excitement. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. I didn’t dream it could happen! He said it would happen but I couldn’t believe it.’

Ishraq exchanged one frightened glance with Isolde. ‘Is this a miracle of your God?’ she demanded. ‘Is He doing it? Right now?’

On board the grounded ship, the tethered horses and the donkey were rearing against their ropes. Freize walked among them, trying to calm them down as they pulled their heads away from their halters, their hooves clattering against the wooden stalls. The wooden gangplank had sunk down at one end with the ship. Now it splintered and broke, falling down into the silt of the harbour.

‘Hush, my lovelies, be calm! Be calm!’ Freize called to the horses. ‘We’re all settled here now. High and dry, nothing to fear, I am sure. Be calm and in a moment I’ll have you out of here.’

‘Follow me! Follow me!’ Johann cried, and started down the stone steps of the quay. ‘This is the way, this is the way to Jerusalem! This is the way made straight!’

The children followed him at once, filled with excitement at the adventure. At the back someone started to sing the Canticle of Simeon: ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, Which thou has prepared before the face of all people . . .’

‘God shows us the way!’ Johann cried out. ‘God leads us to the Promised Land. He makes the wet places dry and we shall walk to the Holy Land!’

‘Should we go with him?’ Isolde asked Luca, trembling with hope and fear. ‘Is this truly a miracle?’

Luca’s face was alight. ‘I can’t believe it! But it must be. Johann said that there would be dry land to Jerusalem, and here is the sea pouring away from the land!’

The children were singing like a thousand-strong choir, spilling down the steps of the harbour, some of them jumping off the wet steps and laughing as they went ankle deep into the silt, picking their way through the thick wet weeds where the shells crunched under their feet, walking hand in hand, scores of them, hundreds of them, side by side, winding their way around the grounded ships and old wrecks, to the mouth of the harbour where the sea still retreated before them, further and further out towards the horizon, far quicker than they could walk, as it built a bridge of land for them, just for them, all the way to Palestine.

‘I think we should go,’ Luca decided, his heart racing. ‘Go with them now. I think it’s a true miracle. Johann said that the sea would part for us and it has done so.’

Luca went to the head of the harbour steps, Brother Peter beside him. ‘D’you think this is true?’ Luca shouted, his brown eyes bright with excitement.