ang 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
to be like a man having the head and horns of a ram. The statue of
Amun-Ra had then been loaded with jewels, through the reverence of
the merchants who halted their caravans at this oasis, and who left
their treasures in the strong rooms of the temple, while resting the
camels under the palm trees.

All this Timokles remembered, as he stood beside the steaming
Fountain of the Sun in the oasis, and watched the bubbles that
constantly rose to the surface of that famous body of water.

"O branded-cheeked cutter of dykes, art thou in very truth a
Christian?" contemptuously asked the slave that guarded Timokles.

"I am, O friend," gently answered the lad.

"Ill shalt thou fare in this oasis, then," threatened the slave.

Timokles' eyes wandered over the landscape. The surface of the oasis
was undulating, and on the north it rose into high, limestone hills.
Date palms abounded near by Timokles. He could s