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Updated: May 9, 2025
Taking heart from the apparent lack of real hostility in the manner of his captors, Timokles asked for something to eat. He was understood, and the three, taking Timokles, turned from the hills, and proceeded eastward, till, coming to a black tent near some palms, the woman went in and brought Timokles some barley cakes.
When he could look up at last, the sun was descending toward the west. Far overhead sailed the sacred hawk of Egypt, and the bird's piercing cry, full of melancholy, reached Timokles' ears. The shadow of a palm tree stretched outward and touched him. "Oh, God!" whispered Timokles reverently, "Thou west Daniel's God. Thou art mine!" Night had fallen.
"I am, O maiden," answered Timokles. The girl's awe-struck eyes searched his face. "Did thy God deliver thee?" she questioned, whispering still. "Yea," replied Timokles reverently and truly. "Yea, O maiden, my God delivered me from the leopard." The girl looked alarmed. She drew back. "Did he come to thee?" she asked in a terrified whisper.
Timokles jumped. He grasped the palm branch with one hand. The other brought a handful of frayed bark down. He caught hold of the branch with both hands just as the leopard sprang into the air. Timokles swung aside as far as possible. A great mass of mud, dislodged from the roof, fell, smiting alike boy and beast, enveloping them in a cloud of blinding dust.
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!"
The peculiar odor of the air was more noticeable than before, but it was not till he had reached the middle of the darkened room, and stood gazing about him, that he perceived at the farther end, in the shadows, a space of yellowish fawn color, and then saw manifold dark spots, also, that shaped themselves into a large, living form. Timokles drew one quick breath. He softly retreated.
A sudden joy shot through Heraklas that they were so near together, Timokles and, himself. It was for this he had stayed outside Alexandria till the gates were shut. It were better to be a homeless Christian on this water than to linger in godless Alexandria! He heard sounds of revelry on shipboard. Heraklas pulled on the rope that fastened the small boat to the ship.
"Oh!" broke forth Timokles earnestly, "I know a death that was a glorious victory! Carthage knew of it! Didst thou not hear what was done last year at Carthage? Didst thou not know of the Christian lady, Vivia Perpetua, and the Christian slave, Felicitas?" A shudder ran through Pentaur, as Timokles continued: "Thinkest thou that what they suffered was nothing?
Furiously, with all his strength, he dug and pulled till the staple yielded, and he fell down among the prisoners. But the drunken men on deck did not hear. Heraklas labored on, till at last he threw his arms about his brother. "Stand up, my Timokles," he begged. "See if thou art not free!" Timokles arose. Nothing hindered him. "O Heraklas!" he whispered, trembling with excitement.
"Truly," he assured himself with much complacency, as he perceived Timokles being carried, "I follow the maxim of Ptah-hotep: 'Treat well thy people, as it behooveth thee; this is the duty of those whom the gods favor."
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