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Updated: May 9, 2025
Timokles was swept along, till at length the silent, determined company came to a solitary, ruined building. Timokles was pulled over the fallen stones, across what had once been the court of the dwelling. Then the company reached a spot where part of the house was still standing. Here a barred door shut off further progress, but two of the men with great effort opened the entrance.
From the swaying motion and the sound of a slight, though ominous, cracking, Timokles doubted if his support were reliable. The rage of the leopard was frightful. He seemed beside himself. He leaped and rushed hither and thither, as he saw Timokles climbing higher. The boy shook with exhaustion. His right arm bled from the wounds of the leopard's claws.
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.
"How art thou bound, my Timokles?" asked Heraklas, when they had embraced and wept together. "My feet are bound with naught but cords, but a chain about my body fasteneth me to a hook in the wall," answered Timokles. "Thou canst not release me, my brother! Flee, while thou canst!" "Nay, but I will try," whispered Heraklas resolutely.
The lad could not pause, but now, as he neared the end of the wall and looked up once beyond the leopard, Timokles saw, in the dark corner that he had passed, what he had not before noticed when near enough to see it, as he had not before lifted his eyes from the leopard. In that farther, dark corner there was a darker line that marked the wall for some distance from the roof.
He did not fear death, but he dreaded capture and unknown terrors. The dark form passed by again. A chill went over Timokles, as he thought he saw a weapon in the man's hand. The footsteps became inaudible once more. Timokles, waiting a long time, imagined his foe might have gone.
"O Severus!" whispered Timokles, "what didst thou see, when thou visitedst Egypt five years ago, that thou shouldest decree such evil against the Egyptian Christians now?" Softly Timokles went his way in the dark. He was hungry, yet he dared eat little of the dried dates he had with him. When would he find other food?
For a time he looked warily around, but soon his sense of loneliness overcame his fear, and he watched more for some sign of his four friends than for an indication of an enemy. "Perhaps some Christian hath escaped, even as I have," thought Timokles. He started. Outstretched before him lay a figure of a man! Timokles stood motionless, till he perceived the man be to be asleep.
O my Heraklas, I rejoice thou art a Christian! Go! We shall meet again in the kingdom of our God!" "I will never leave thee," answered Heraklas, firmly. "The men are drinking themselves senseless. I will try what I can do." He felt the wall till he found that Timokles' chain was held, not by a hook, but a staple.
He carefully approached one of the holes of the roof, and, kneeling, put his face down to the aperture. The man spoke, and, by his tones, Timokles recognized Pentaur the merchant. "Oh, Christian!" cried Pentaur into the depth of the building, "livest thou? Ill shall I fare at the judgment of Osiris for this day's deed!" There was silence.
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