outward before him, after the custom of an Egyptian in prayer, and
addressed him whom the Egyptians thought the maker of the sun, the
god Phthah, "the father of the beginnings," "the first of the gods
of the upper world."

"Hail to thee, O Ptahtanen," began Heraklas, "great god who
concealeth his form, . . thou art watching when at rest; the father
of all fathers and of all gods. . . Watcher, who traversest the
endless ages of eternity."

The familiar words brought no comfort. Between him and the
shimmering desert came the memory of his brother's face, and
Heraklas forgot Ptahtanen, and cried out again in desperation.

His eyes strained toward the desert. Somewhere in its depths, his
twin brother Timokles, the being whom of all on earth Heraklas most
loved, lived,--or perhaps, in the brief week that had elapsed since
he was snatched from his Alexandrian home, had died. Timokles had
forsaken the gods of his own family, the gods his own dead father
had adored, Egypt's gods. The lad would not even worship the gods of
Rome. Timokles had become one of the Christians, and had, in
consequence, been falsely accused of having, during a former
inundation, cut one of the dykes near the Nile. This offense, in the
days of Roman rule, was punishable by condemnation to labor in the
mines, or by branding and transportation to an oasis of the desert.

Timokles, innocent of the crime charged upon him,--having been at
home in Alexandria during the time when he was accused of having
been abroad on the evil errand,--was dragged away to exile, for was
he not a Christian? Living or dead, the desert held him. The Roman