Carefully Timokles crept over the fallen remnants of the old building. Then he turned from the direction in which the village lay, and set his face toward the northern limestone hills.

He was concealed among them when the sun rose. It would be folly for him to venture out alone upon the desert without food, even if he had water in his small skin bottle. As the morning went by, Timokles saw a few desert hares, but otherwise he was alone. Toward evening, being compelled to find some food, he searched the district, and found, under the stones, the nest of some wild bees. With much difficulty Timokles obtained a little of the honey.

A falling stone attracted Timokles' attention. Turning with quick affright, he saw a woman. There was a startled suspicion in her eyes, as she gazed at him. She held a young gazelle that had strayed away and had been the object of her search near these hills.

Suddenly the woman disappeared without a word.

CHAPTER V.

"Let me hide speedily!" Timokles warned himself.

He ran, but shouts arose behind, and before he could conceal himself, two men came running after him. The woman's shrill cry was audible. The men came up with Timokles, and laying hold of him in a manner not wholly rough but still imperative; they brought him back with them to the spot where the woman still stood.

The three looked at him with curious yet not wholly unfriendly eyes, and Timokles felt relieved on seeing that he was not recognized as any one whom they had seen before. This spot was so far from that on which the building stood where he had been given to the leopard, that the lad concluded these people had not witnessed that scene.

Pentaur's caravan would have left the oasis before now. Probably the merchant was about to renew his journey at the time of his visit to the leopard's den.

The woman pointed to Timokles' branded cheek. Taking heart from the apparent lack of real hostility in the manner of his captors, Timokles asked for something to eat. He was understood, and the three, taking Timokles, turned from the hills, and proceeded eastward, till, coming to a black tent near some palms, the woman went in and brought Timokles some barley cakes.

While the boy ate, the two men, still watching him, betook themselves to work. They seemed to be makers of idols. The father was carving a small wooden statuette of the G.o.d Thoth. The son worked on a larger idol, the G.o.ddess Apet, or Thoueris, in the shape of a hippopotamus walking upright on hind feet. The idol was of green serpentine, and the mother watched with evident pride the skill with which her son worked.

Timokles moved to rise, and instantly the suspicious eyes of the young hippopotamus-sculptor flashed. The father dropped his statuette, and, fiercely springing forward, forced Timokles to the ground, bound him, and went back to the carving of the ibis-head of Thoth.

Beneath the hand of the younger idol-maker, the hippopotamus grew in hideous perfection. Helplessly Timokles watched the process. The mouth of the hippopotamus-G.o.ddess was almost shut, but the teeth of the lower jaw were visible, and it was upon their making, as well as upon that of the wide nostrils, that the young man was expending his skill. The huge ears of the G.o.ddess descended on the fore-feet, which were placed on the sides of the upright animal, as a man's arms hang by his sides when he walks, and from each of the hippopotamus' arms there descended to the level of her feet the Egyptian emblem of protection, called "Sa."

As Timokles looked at those emblems of protection, a new thought grew within him.

"Women will worship that hippopotamus-G.o.ddess and think themselves safe! I worship the G.o.d of heaven, and yet I am afraid! Shall I not put as much trust in the delivering, protecting power of my G.o.d, as the idol-worshiper will put in this hippopotamus?"

There came the sound of hurried footsteps, and a young girl ran by the black tent, and spoke gayly to the woman. From the resemblance of the maiden to the worker on the hippopotamus, Timokles had no doubt she was his sister. But when the girl, turning her brilliant, laughing face toward Timokles, first saw him, her dark eyes dilated with a look of startled horror.

Timokles knew, as well as if she had spoken, that she was one of those who had seen him dragged to the leopard's home. He looked beseechingly at her now, as she stood transfixed, the shocked expression deepening in her eyes. If she should say a word! Timokles could feel himself tremble. She had thought him dead! She knew him!

If she should say so!

The silent appeal of Timokles' beseeching face seemed to find its answer for the moment. The girl turned toward the work of the idol-makers.

No one beside Timokles had noticed her frightened gaze. Now, with a.s.sumed carelessness, she watched her brother's busy fingers, yet Timokles felt that her thoughts were of him. She had only to speak; to say, "This is the Christian who was thrown to the leopard," and father and son would drop their work, spring upon him, drag him back all the way to the building from which he had escaped, and toss him, bound and helpless, to the leopard.

It was not till nearly dark that the idol-makers ceased their work.

Having eaten dried dates and barley bread, the father and the son, first tightening Timokles' thongs, went away in the direction of the far distant village. During their absence, the girl came to Timokles, bringing him water and dried dates.

"Tell me, O Christian," she whispered in the tongue of Egypt, "art thou not he?"

She needed not to make the question more explicit.

"I am, O maiden," answered Timokles. The girl's awe-struck eyes searched his face.

"Did thy G.o.d deliver thee?" she questioned, whispering still.

"Yea," replied Timokles reverently and truly. "Yea, O maiden, my G.o.d delivered me from the leopard."

The girl looked alarmed. She drew back.

"Did he come to thee?" she asked in a terrified whisper. "O Christian, no one ever before came back from the House of the Leopard! O Christian; I am afraid of thy G.o.d!"

There was real terror in her voice. Timokles was moved with compa.s.sion. He leaned forward, eager to explain to her the truth.

What should he say?

"He is a great G.o.d, the only G.o.d!" whispered Timokles, reverently.

"O maiden, he is not like an idol! He is the only G.o.d. Thou canst not see him, yet he seeth and loveth thee. Speak to him, and he will hear. He loveth us. He sent his Son to die for our sins. For that Son's sake, O maiden, he will blot out our sins, if we entreat him.

O maiden, pray no more to idols! Lo, I tell you of the true G.o.d!"

He hardly knew whether she understood or not. She gazed at him as if half comprehending his words, and then the fact of his having returned from the House of the Leopard seemed to overwhelm every other thought, and she murmured, "O Christian, I am afraid of thy G.o.d and thee!"

She fled back to the black tent. Timokles' bound hands made but awkward work of eating. He could hear the voices of the mother and the daughter talking in the mother's tongue, but what they said he knew not. Would the father or the son learn something about their captive?

The voices hushed within the tent. The hours of sleep came on.

The night had grown black. There were footsteps audible.

"They have come back!" thought Timokles.

The father and the son had returned, and with them came another man.

Timokles heard and understood something of what was said at the tent's door in the dark.

"If I may but see his face, I shall know whether he hath been here before," declared the new voice eagerly. "I have seen all who have come to our village."

"Thou shalt see him in the morning," impatiently answered the maker of the hippopotamus. "Knowest thou not that on this day I cannot make a flame by which thou shouldest see? It is the eleventh day of Tybi, concerning which it is commanded by the priests of Egypt, 'Approach not any flame on this day; Ra is there for the purpose of destroying the wicked.'"

"I fear no flame!" muttered the new voice discontentedly. "Let me but see the stranger!"

"There shall no flame be kindled!" burst out in wrath the superst.i.tious father. "Bide thou till morning! Then shalt thou see the branded one."

Silence followed. The discontented villager did not dare say more.

After a short time, the quietness of slumber seemed to envelop the black tent.

Concealed by the dark, Timokles endeavored with his teeth to loosen the bonds of his wrists. After prolonged attempts, he undid one knot, and by successive wearisome trials he at length entirely released his left hand.

Timokles was near the black tent. It seemed to him that he heard the faintest stir within. But a long silence followed, and he thought he had been mistaken.

Timokles tugged at the thongs of his right hand. His arm was lame from the leopard's claws, and he could not reach the knots that held him. He struggled mightily, till at last he lay exhausted, no nearer free than before.

"I cannot do it!" he despaired.

He must wait for dawn, for recognition, and for death, such death as was thought meet for a Christian. Timokles shut his eyes, and prayed.

"Be with me, be with me, O Lord!" besought Timokles.