p's company. One after
another the three fugitives finally slipped into the water. Heraklas
bore up Timokles, who swam but weakly. The third Christian was
feeble, but he made headway, and in slow fashion they came at length
to the docks of Alexandria.

By this time it was long past midnight. That Timokles or the third
Christian, whose name was Philo, should enter the city was not to be
thought of, since they would be recognized and retaken. After
consultation it was agreed that Timokles and Philo should proceed
along the edge of the sea in an easterly direction and hide
themselves at a point agreed upon, on the coast, a distance from the
city. Heraklas was to enter into Alexandria at the earliest dawn and
was, if possible, to send a message to his mother. He was to obtain
an amount of food, such as he could carry without exciting
suspicion, and was to met his brother and Philo at the appointed
place on the sea-shore. Then they were to flee.

Heraklas went with the others a little way. It seemed as if he could
not part from Timokles. Who knew if they should ever meet again?

In the house where Heraklas' mother dwelt, a receiving-room for
visitors looked upon the court, but a row of columns led inward to a
private sitting-room, which, after the manner of the Egyptians,
stood isolated in one of the passages. In this isolated room, the
mother sat on a stool of ebony, inlaid with ivory. Beside her lay a
papyrus on which was written part of the Sacred Book of the
Christians. The face of the proud woman was hidden in her hands.

Before her stood a messenger who had brought her the following
writing from Heraklas:

"O my mother, forgive thy son! I have found Timokles! He is weak;
nigh, I fear, to death. O my mother, I also am a Christian: Read, I
pray thee, the papyrus I send. It is part of the Christians' Book.
We flee, with other Christians, from Alexandria, today. Farewell."

The mother lifted her face, and her cry rang through the room, "O my
sons, my sons!"

She had execrated Timokles at times when she had spoken of him
before Heraklas, and he had thought that the execration came from
her heart. But she had longed, with pain unspeakable, to see
Timokles once more. And now, when she knew that he had been in
Alexandria, that he needed a mother's care, that Heraklas, also, had
owned allegiance to the Christians' God--when she thought of
Christians burned, beheaded, given to wild beasts--when she realized
that perhap