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Updated: June 9, 2025
The merchant's piercing look regarded Timokles for a few minutes. "There were women among those twelve Christians who were brought from Scillita to Carthage to die," continued Timokles, "three women, called Donata, Secunda, and Vestina.
To be caught in this death-trap, and be torn to pieces! It must not be! He did not regret that he had avowed his belief in Christ. He would do such a thing again, if necessary. No less, there grew within him a determination to ward off this beast as long as possible. "Oh, Lord, help me! Deliver me!" whispered Timokles.
No more! O Vivia, Vivia!" With a groan of anguish, Pentaur looked upward, as if behind the desert's sky he might see again that youthful face, the face of that sweet Christian with whom he had been acquainted from childhood and whom he had last seen dying in Carthage's amphitheatre. Little did Timokles know how the memory of Vivia Perpetua's death hour had haunted Pentaur.
Having eaten dried dates and barley bread, the father and the son, first tightening Timokles' thongs, went away in the direction of the far distant village. During their absence, the girl came to Timokles, bringing him water and dried dates. "Tell me, O Christian," she whispered in the tongue of Egypt, "art thou not he?" She needed not to make the question more explicit.
Then the two martyrs gave each other the kiss of peace, and a gladiator killed them." Timokles paused once more. Still no response. "I remember hearing one thing more concerning Vivia Perpetua," ventured Timokles. "In prison she had had a vision. She thought she saw a golden ladder stretching up to heaven, and on either side of the ladder were swords, and spears, and knives.
He could hear the voices of the mother and the daughter talking in the mother's tongue, but what they said he knew not. Would the father or the son learn something about their captive? The voices hushed within the tent. The hours of sleep came on. The night had grown black. There were footsteps audible. "They have come back!" thought Timokles.
No one beside Timokles had noticed her frightened gaze. Now, with assumed carelessness, she watched her brother's busy fingers, yet Timokles felt that her thoughts were of him.
The father and the son had returned, and with them came another man. Timokles heard and understood something of what was said at the tent's door in the dark. "If I may but see his face, I shall know whether he hath been here before," declared the new voice eagerly. "I have seen all who have come to our village."
The face of the proud woman was hidden in her hands. Before her stood a messenger who had brought her the following writing from Heraklas: "O my mother, forgive thy son! I have found Timokles! He is weak; nigh, I fear, to death. O my mother, I also am a Christian: Read, I pray thee, the papyrus I send. We flee, with other Christians, from Alexandria, today. Farewell."
Between him and the shimmering desert came the memory of his brother's face, and Heraklas forgot Ptahtanen, and cried out again in desperation. His eyes strained toward the desert. Somewhere in its depths, his twin brother Timokles, the being whom of all on earth Heraklas most loved, lived, or perhaps, in the brief week that had elapsed since he was snatched from his Alexandrian home, had died.
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