Outstretched before him lay a figure of a man! Timokles stood
motionless, till he perceived the man be to be asleep. Then the lad
bent over the sleeper to scan his face. But, as Timokles stooped, he
dimly saw, in the relaxed, open palm of the man's hand, a small
stone of the triangular form under which the Egyptians were wont to
worship Osiris, Isis, and Horus. Such are the stones found in the
tombs of the Egyptians.

This was no Christian sleeper that lay at Timokles' feet! The lad
turned and fled into the distance.

Through the desert there wailed a thin, plaintive cry. It was the
voice of a night-wandering jackal.

Timokles was dizzy to faintness, and staggered as he was driven on.
He had been discovered and taken. His life had been spared that he
might henceforth be a slave.

"I bear this for thy sake, O Lord, dear Lord!" murmured the
exhausted lad, as the blows drove him through the pathless desert.

Again came the plaintive cry of the wandering jackal.

"For thy sake!" faintly repeated Timokles.

A few minutes passed, and once more the jackal's inarticulate voice
wailed through the desert, but Timokles had fallen, helpless. A man
sprang forward, and the lash fell again and again on Timokles'
prostrate body, but the boy did not stir.