Out of the Triangle Part 9

"Timokles!" he whispered. "Timokles! O Timokles, my brother!"

CHAPTER VIII.

From the bound Christians came no answer to Heraklas' cry, though there was a startled movement among them.

"O my brother! my brother!" murmured Heraklas, the tears running down his face in the dark, "I am Heraklas! I, too, am a Christian!"

"Heraklas!" cried Timokles, "Heraklas! How camest thou hither?"

"Peace!" whispered Heraklas in terror. "Thou wilt be heard!"

Heraklas cast his arms about his brother and clung to him.

"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.

He drew his knife from his girdle, and feeling of the cords that bound his brother's ankles, cut the knots. Timokles sighed with relief, as he moved his cramped feet. The feet of two of the other Christians were bound with thongs, and these Heraklas cut also, but the other five Christians were bound hand and foot with chains, and for them Heraklas' knife could not avail. Timokles and the other two had been considered weaker in body, or else the persons who secured the Christians had been in haste to join the reveling of the mariners, and had thought cords strong enough. Yet what availed it that the feet of any of the Christians were free, if their bodies were securely bound?

"Thou hast done all thou canst, Heraklas," whispered Timokles. "Go now, my brother. O my Heraklas, I rejoice thou art a Christian! Go!

We shall meet again in the kingdom of our G.o.d!"

"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. It was only after long labor with his knife around this staple that it shook a little in its hold on the wall.

Then Heraklas seized the staple, and swung his whole weight upon it, and dug his knife into the wall like a madman. He worked with perspiration standing on his forehead, his breath coming in pants.

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.

"Sit down again and rest, till I help our brethren, also," whispered his brother.

But though Heraklas toiled with all his remaining strength, he succeeded in releasing but one other Christian.

"Leave us," urged the others.

"O my brethren," answered Heraklas with a sob, "would that I could save you!"

But the six Christians answered steadily, "Why weepest thou, brother? We but go to our Father's house before thee."

Then he whose feet Heraklas had released, thanked him most heartily, and all said farewell.

Hours had gone by since Heraklas first came on board the s.h.i.+p.

Cautiously he and Timokles and the other Christian crept out of the hold. Every movement of their own affrighted them, though they knew a drunken stupor rested on some of the s.h.i.+p's company. One after another the three fugitives finally slipped into the water. Heraklas bore up Timokles, who swam but weakly. The third Christian was feeble, but he made headway, and in slow fas.h.i.+on they came at length to the docks of Alexandria.

By this time it was long past midnight. That Timokles or the third Christian, whose name was Philo, should enter the city was not to be thought of, since they would be recognized and retaken. After consultation it was agreed that Timokles and Philo should proceed along the edge of the sea in an easterly direction and hide themselves at a point agreed upon, on the coast, a distance from the city. Heraklas was to enter into Alexandria at the earliest dawn and was, if possible, to send a message to his mother. He was to obtain an amount of food, such as he could carry without exciting suspicion, and was to met his brother and Philo at the appointed place on the sea-sh.o.r.e. Then they were to flee.

Heraklas went with the others a little way. It seemed as if he could not part from Timokles. Who knew if they should ever meet again?

In the house where Heraklas' mother dwelt, a receiving-room for visitors looked upon the court, but a row of columns led inward to a private sitting-room, which, after the manner of the Egyptians, stood isolated in one of the pa.s.sages. In this isolated room, the mother sat on a stool of ebony, inlaid with ivory. Beside her lay a papyrus on which was written part of the Sacred Book of the Christians. 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. It is part of the Christians' Book.

We flee, with other Christians, from Alexandria, today. Farewell."

The mother lifted her face, and her cry rang through the room, "O my sons, my sons!"

She had execrated Timokles at times when she had spoken of him before Heraklas, and he had thought that the execration came from her heart. But she had longed, with pain unspeakable, to see Timokles once more. 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' G.o.d--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!"

"Hus.h.!.+" warned the messenger, quickly. "Thy slaves will hear thee!"

The mother seized the messenger's arm.

"Tell me where my sons are," she begged. "I will go to them!"

The messenger looked piercingly at her. He, a Christian, had risked much to bring her this message. Dare he trust this woman, known to be a devout wors.h.i.+per of Egypt's G.o.ds? Would she not betray the fleeing Christians?

"What is it, my mother?" he asked gently.--See page 37.

"Tell me where my sons are!" besought the mother with tears. "Oh, tell me! I cannot lose them! What is my home to me without them? I will not betray any Christian! Only tell me; and let me see my sons again!"

Then the messenger saw in the mother's eyes that she spoke truthfully, but he said, "How can I trust thee?"

"I swear by Isis!" implored the mother.

"Nay," returned, the messenger gravely, "it is not meet that a Christian should bind any one by a heathen oath."

The mother cried out, and besought him, declaring that she would depart from Alexandria, if her sons could not dwell there.

"They cannot, except they risk death," stated the messenger "Thou knowest Timokles' life is forfeit. Knowest thou not how many Christians have fled, and what torments Christians who have been brought here from all Egypt have suffered? Wouldst thou thy two sons should suffer in like manner?"

"I will go into exile with them," answered the woman.

"How wilt thou leave this, thy beautiful home?" asked the messenger.