Out of the Triangle | Page 5

found
'the truth' O Timokles, is thy 'truth' sweet to thee now? Oh, my brother,
my brother!"
Heraklas cast himself down among the vines, and wept his unavailing
tears. Little did the lad, reared in a pagan home, know of the sweetness
of the Christian faith, for which Timokles had forsaken all.

Heraklas' small sister, the child Cocce, sat on the pavement in the
central court of her home in Alexandria. Above her towered three
palms that shaded the court. Beside the little girl was an Egyptian toy,
the figure of a man kneading dough. The man would work, if a string
were pulled, but Cocce had thrown the toy aside. Lower and lower sank
the small, brown head, more and more sleepily closed the large, brown
eyes, till the child drooped against a stone table that was supported by
the stone figure of a captive, bending beneath the weight of the table's
top.
As Heraklas entered the court his eyes fell upon his sleeping little sister,
but he noted more closely the stone captive against which she leaned.
Heraklas marked how the captive was represented to bend beneath the
table's weight. The boy's eyes grew fierce. Captivity seemed a cruel
thing, since Timokles had gone into it.
Heraklas flung himself on a seat covered by a leopard's skin, and gazed
moodily upward at the palm-leaves, one or two of which stirred faintly
under the slight wind that came from a corridor, whither the wooden
wind-sails,--sloping boards commonly fixed over the terraces of the
upper portions of Egyptian houses,--had conducted the current of air.
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.
"The people destroy the possessions of some of the Christians," humbly
replied the slave, whose name was Athribis; and Heraklas, stung to the
quick by the answer, impatiently motioned the man away.
Left alone, Heraklas lifted his head proudly. He would ignore the pain.
What had he to do with the Christians? He, who had watched his
consecration-night in the temple of Isis; he, who had caught some sight
of the Mysteries sacred to that goddess; he, who had worn the harsh

linen robe and those symbolic robes in which a novice watches his
dream-indicated night--what had he to do with Christians? Would that
Timokles had observed the emperor's command that no one should
become a Christian! Heraklas groaned.
The dismissed man-slave, Athribis, looked cautiously back through the
pillars, and smiled. None knew better than he how any reference to the
Christians stabbed the hearts of this family. Athribis himself hated the
Christians. He longed to be out in Alexandria's streets this moment, that
he, too, might be at liberty to pillage the Christians' houses. Who knew
what jewels he might find? And he must stay here, polishing a
corridor's pavement, when such things, were being done in the streets!
His dark eyes glanced back again. Heraklas' head was bowed.
Stealthily Athribis passed out of sight of the court. He threaded his way
through corridors.
"Whither goest thou?" asked another slave by the threshold.
"I go to the market to get some lentiles," glibly replied Athribis; and,
passing, he quickly gained the portal and the street.
"One, may find that which is better than lentiles," Athribis communed
with himself, as he wound hither and thither through the excited crowds.
"Should a Christian have jewels, and I none? I, who am faithful to the
gods!"
With this the slave plunged into a company of house-breakers, and with
them boldly attacked the dwelling of a Christian. It was easily taken,
and Athribis rushed with the company into the interior. Stools and
couches were wrenched to pieces, cushions were torn, tables were
overthrown.
"Woe to the Christians of Alexandria!" fiercely muttered one man. "We
will root them from our city! They shall die!"
The crude brick of the building gave way, in places, under repeated
blows. The stucco of the outer walls fell off, and was tracked with the

crushed brick into the halls. Some of the rude company, rushing to the
flat roof of the building, discovered there, hidden by a wind-sail, a
treasure-box, as was at first supposed. On being hastily opened,
however, the box was found to hold nothing but some rolls of writing.
Contemptuously the box was kicked aside.
"Come down! Come down!" cried voices from the court. "Here are the
Christians!"
The loud clamor from below announced that the Christian family had
indeed been discovered, and would be taken to prison.
The company on the roof made haste to descend, to witness the family's
humiliating