raklas with every step of the procession.

"They carry the shrine of the sacred beetle of the sun," suspected
Heraklas. "I cannot meet them!"

He turned, and dashed down the first opening that presented itself.
The passage led him utterly out of his way.

"But better so," meditated Heraklas, "than that I should have met
that skin-dressed priest!"

He stopped an instant. His circuitous way had led him in sight of a
spot where he had once seen the Christian woman, Marcella, and her
daughter Potamiaena, passing on their way to martyrdom. How awful a
form of martyrdom was it that Alexandria visited upon that beautiful
Christian daughter! Gradually, hot, scalding pitch was poured over
her body, in order that she might endure the utmost torture
possible.

Heraklas looked around him at the proud, beautiful city.

"O Alexandria, Alexandria!" he whispered, "in thee is found the
blood of the saints!"

For a moment the thought of such a death, as a Christian's
punishment, overcame him. Yet he remembered that it was through
Potamiaena's martyrdom that the soldier, Basilides, was led to
become a Christian also. He refused to take a pagan oath, and was
brought to martyrdom.

When Heraklas reached home, he was trembling. His short journey had
been freighted with silent meaning.

CHAPTER VII.

Two men passed out of the Gate of the Sun, the northern gate of
Alexandria, and came to the docks that bordered the Great Port. The
gaze of one man wandered from the promontory of Locrias on the east
to the isle of Pharos on the north, and followed back the dyke that
connected that island with the docks and marked the division between
the Great Port and Alexandria's other harbor, the Port of Eunostus.

"When that ship saileth," remarked the man, indicating a large
vessel moored in the Great Port, "some Christians go as ballast!"

"How knowest thou?" asked the other.

The former speaker smiled.

"Thou didst not see a little procession that came through the Gate
of Necropolis last evening," he conjectured. "Some Christians
brought in from the desert. This ship carrieth them to Rome, to the
lions of the arena."

An unbelieving spirit looked from the other man's eyes.

"When the Christians see that ship waiting for them, they will
recant," he prophesied. "A man doth not readily take shipping for
the port of a lion's mouth!"

"Thou dost not know the Christians," asserted the other. "They are
an obstinate people. Our Lor