Pentaur sprang to his feet, and put out a shaking hand.

"No more!" he cried. "Oh, no more! No more! O Vivia, Vivia!"

With a groan of anguish, Pentaur looked upward, as if behind the
desert's sky he might see again that youthful face, the face of that
sweet Christian with whom he had been acquainted from childhood and
whom he had last seen dying in Carthage's amphitheatre. Little did
Timokles know how the memory of Vivia Perpetua's death hour had
haunted Pentaur. They had been children together in Carthage, and
the martyrdom that Vivia Perpetua had suffered in her young
womanhood had impressed Pentaur more than all the agony he had seen
other Christians endure. When she gave up her life, he had clinched
his hands, and muttered fierce words against Carthage's gods, words
he afterward trembled to recall. He served those gods now, yet he
revered the memory of the Christian, Vivia Perpetua, as of one of
the holiest of women.

Timokles ventured no further words.

Pentaur summoned a slave, and committed to his care the young
Christian. The memory of Vivia Perpetua might pierce the merchant's
soul, but would not avail for Timokles' release.

Bound to another slave to prevent escape, Timokles traveled with the
company that night, and before morning the oasis of Ammon, "Oasis
Ammonia," was reached. It was a green and shady valley, several
miles long and three broad, in the midst of sand-hills. Here, over
five hundred years before, had come the founder of Alexandria,
Alexander the Great, to visit the oracle of Ammon, the god figured