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Updated: June 7, 2025
Out of the recesses of the rocks, some forms arose, and Heraklas, as in a dream, saw his mother, his proud mother she who had burned incense to the sun, she who had once held the sacred sistrum in Amun's temple, she who had taught him to worship Isis, and Osiris, and Horus, and the River Nile his mother throw her arms about Timokles, and kiss his scarred cheek, and sob on the young Christian's neck, "O my son, I have missed thee so!
For the face he had seen was the face of Athribis! There were eight of the Christians. Heraklas, peering from a distance behind, saw the light held high, as the men paused beside the Christians. Absolutely exhausted, most of them, by the forced march of the desert, and by the lack of enough food, they were asleep, and Heraklas noted with a great pity their gaunt faces.
Who knew if they should ever meet again? In the house where Heraklas' mother dwelt, a receiving-room for visitors looked upon the court, but a row of columns led inward to a private sitting-room, which, after the manner of the Egyptians, stood isolated in one of the passages. In this isolated room, the mother sat on a stool of ebony, inlaid with ivory.
"Sit down again and rest, till I help our brethren, also," whispered his brother. But though Heraklas toiled with all his remaining strength, he succeeded in releasing but one other Christian. "Leave us," urged the others. "O my brethren," answered Heraklas with a sob, "would that I could save you!" But the six Christians answered steadily, "Why weepest thou, brother?
Yet never, from the day when Heraklas spied Athribis watching the reading of the roll, had the slave, with all his contriving, been able again to catch sight of the papyrus. It was no longer kept in its secret hole behind the bricks. Athribis had looked. Where else had he not looked? He had hunted the house through as thoroughly as he had been able, snatching a hasty opportunity here and there.
Alexandria knew nothing yet of Heraklas' defection. When Alexandria was some distance behind, the lady spoke. "Stop the chariot," she commanded. The young lad obeyed. The woman and child descended to the road. "I would walk," said the woman. "Drive thou home again, and say thou naught. See, here is something for thee." She gave him some money. The lad did as he was bidden.
A thin, vapory mist seemed to move above the heated, barren surface of the grim sea of sand. Heraklas stretched out his hands in agony toward the desert, and cried aloud, "O my brother, my brother Timokles! How shall I live without thee?" The soft ripple of the lake beside him seemed like mockery.
And now, when she knew that he had been in Alexandria, that he needed a mother's care, that Heraklas, also, had owned allegiance to the Christians' God when she thought of Christians burned, beheaded, given to wild beasts when she realized that perhaps she should never see again the face of Timokles or Heraklas, the heart of the mother broke within her, and she wailed, "O my sons! My sons!"
Thenceforward, unspoken, yet felt as surely as though expressed, there existed in Heraklas' mind a constant suspicion of Athribis. Heraklas carried the papyrus roll with him, day and night. Well did he know the danger, but he said to himself that he would not be dictated to by a servant. That was the ostensible reason he gave himself for not immediately burning the roll.
Borne from the streets of Alexandria, there seemed to Heraklas to come certain new, half-heard noises. He listened, yet nothing definite reached his ears. At length, seeing through a range of pillars a slave moving in the distance, Heraklas summoned the man, and asked what was the cause of the faintly-heard sounds.
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