"Now see how the Christian would die in the desert, and cheat us of
all the work he might do!" grumbled the vexed voice of a dismounted
camel-rider. "He is young. There are many years of work in him!"

"Leave him!" scornfully advised another, who held a torch. "Some
beast will find him."

Nay, but he shall go with me to Carthage," asserted a third, from
the height of his camel's back. "Carthage knoweth what to do with
Christians!"

"Who art thou that thou shouldest own the Christian?" demanded the
first, angrily gazing up at the presumptuous rider. "Did I not find
him?"

The mounted camel-rider laughed, and tossed something toward the
irate speaker. The man caught the object, a ring of gold, containing
a scarabaeus.

"Take it," said the giver to the appeased rival. "The Christian is
mine."

The unconscious Timokles was taken up at a sign from the camel-rider
to one of his servants, and the cavalcade proceeded on its way. As
his camel paced forward, Pentaur, the purchaser, glanced back twice
or thrice.

"Truly," he assured himself with much complacency, as he perceived
Timokles being carried, "I follow the maxim of Ptah-hotep: 'Treat
well thy people, as it behooveth thee; this is the duty of those