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Updated: July 9, 2025
The crunching sound partly aroused the leopard. With a long-drawn sigh, the drowsy creature stirred and rose slowly to his feet, stretching himself. He did not yet see Timokles. How beautiful the spotted hide was! Timokles, watching with steady eyes for the instant when he should be discovered, had a fleeting memory of that leopard-skin that covered a seat at home in. Alexandria.
The hours went by and Heraklas did not come, to be spied upon. That morning, Heraklas had gone out to seek some Christians whom he knew. Two weeks ago he had sought them for the first time to tell them that he wished to join their number. Greatly had he and they rejoiced together. "Witness a good confession, as did thy brother Timokles," an old man admonished Heraklas.
He dared not rush across the room, and leap toward the hanging palm branch. He felt certain that if he should turn his back, the leopard would spring immediately. How quickly the beast was coming! Timokles' head whirled. He was dizzy. Suddenly the leopard growled. He crouched as if to spring, and Timokles, with a wild cry, fled across the room toward the palm branch. After him rushed the leopard.
His mother had ceased to speak of Egypt's gods. But to Timokles she seemed no nearer to accepting Christ than when she was in Alexandria. How little we know of the heart-experiences of those persons nearest to us! Timokles drew nearer. His mother heard his step, and turned toward him, but in place of the homesick longing he had expected to see in her eyes, there was a look that thrilled his soul.
Timokles, lying in the dark, heard a sound beside the building. Some one was coming! Timokles crept to the roof's edge farthest from the sound, and lay down. The head of a man appeared above the roof's level. Evidently he was not accustomed to the roof, for he was very cautious in his movements, and tested every step he took.
Only the swaying of the water against the dock answered him. He sprang up and walked out on the dyke that stretched toward the isle of Pharos. Opposite him, the ship showed still more plainly than from the docks. Heraklas made out the prayer inscribed on the vessel: "Do thou, O Isis, preserve in safety this ship over the blue waves." "O Timokles!
"Be with me, be with me, O Lord!" besought Timokles. Again within the tent he conjectured there might be a faint stir. "My enemy cometh!" he thought. But there was silence. Timokles waited, yet there came no sound. Remembrances of what he had heard concerning former martyrs crowded upon him.
Dragging himself upward, panting with exhaustion, Timokles succeeded in mounting through the hole to the outside of the roof. His foot plunged through a mat. He recovered himself, and crawling to a little distance from the hole, he lay down on the roof. The sun was high in the heavens, but all the world became black to Timokles. He lay there, faint, for hours.
It was immovable. Nowhere in it could he discover any opening. The beautiful beast, the waking of which meant so much to Timokles, stirred a little. The claws of one foot were drawn up. Then the foot was relaxed again. The leopard continued to slumber. High above Timokles were two small windows, closed by wooden shutters.
He held on with the clutch of despair. His head just reached a hole in the roof. He missed his grasp, and fell back on the swinging, broken palm branch. With one final, cracking sound it parted! Timokles' one hand grasped the top of the wall; his other hand reached the outer part of the roof. He heard the old palm branch fall, and the leopard spring to meet it.
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