court, hung in a long strip from one of the palms.

The dismayed Athribis cast the other papyri on the roof, and fled.
It was time. The house was being aroused by the cry of the woman.
With his bare, silent feet, Athribis sped through the shadows of the
corridors to what he thought a secret spot, and hid himself. The
house resounded with outcries. Feet ran hither and thither.

Out in the court, hanging all unseen from a palm-tree, swayed the
papyrus, the written copy of part of the Sacred Book of the
Christians!




CHAPTER II.


It was night on the Libyan desert. The stars glittered on the rocky
highlands that compose so much of that desert, and lit faintly, too,
the areas between, where stretches of sand waited to be shifted by
the next simoon that should blow.

In one spot, at the edge of a rock, there was a movement of the
sand. Out of it a form slowly rose.

The sand shook near by, and another person appeared. Another arose,
and another, till five had arisen.

The man who had first appeared spoke, slowly, in a voice that told