He crept a little distance. A rope dangled in his face. He found
himself under the aperture where the buckets for bailing were
worked. After long and careful groping, Heraklas concealed himself
in the vessel's hold, and waited. He suspected that the Christians
were in the hold, but he was afraid to search far.

He had not been long hidden before he heard near him the sound of a
great sigh and the rattling of a chain, as of some animal half-
wakened from sleep.

"It is some wild animal that is to be taken to Rome," suspected
Heraklas, not without a little uneasiness at his own proximity to
the beast.

It was likely that the creature was well secured, yet the lad crept
farther away. He could hear the sound of feet above him and the
laughter of men who, no doubt, were drinking on this almost their
last night in port.

A sound came from another portion of the hold, and Heraklas
listened, trying to discover whether the living being in that
direction were a beast or a person. While he listened, a faint light
began to shine in the hold. There descended softly into the hold two
men, one bearing a light. Heraklas drew back farther into the
darkness. The men passed on, their light held so that Heraklas did
not see their faces. But the hasty glimpse that the lad had of his
surroundings told him that the beast he had crept away from was a
lion that was securely caged in one portion of the hold.

Softly the two men proceeded toward the direction from which