CHAPTER VIII.
From the bound Christians came no answer to Heraklas' cry, though there was a startled movement among them.
"O my brother! my brother!" murmured Heraklas, the tears running down his face in the dark, "I am Heraklas! I, too, am a Christian!"
"Heraklas!" cried Timokles, "Heraklas! How camest thou hither?"
"Peace!" whispered Heraklas in terror. "Thou wilt be heard!"
Heraklas cast his arms about his brother and clung to him.
"How art thou bound, my Timokles?" asked Heraklas, when they had embraced and wept together.
"My feet are bound with naught but cords, but a chain about my body fasteneth me to a hook in the wall," answered Timokles. "Thou canst not release me, my brother! Flee, while thou canst!"
"Nay, but I will try," whispered Heraklas resolutely.
He drew his knife from his girdle, and feeling of the cords that bound his brother's ankles, cut the knots. Timokles sighed with relief, as he moved his cramped feet. The feet of two of the other Christians were bound with thongs, and these Heraklas cut also, but the other five Christians were bound hand and foot with chains, and for them Heraklas' knife could not avail. Timokles and the other two had been considered weaker in body, or else the persons who secured the Christians had been in haste to join the reveling of the mariners, and had thought cords strong enough. Yet what availed it that the feet of any of the Christians were free, if their bodies were securely bound?
"Thou hast done all thou canst, Heraklas," whispered Timokles. "Go now, my brother. O my Heraklas, I rejoice thou art a Christian! Go! We shall meet again in the kingdom of our God!"
"I will never leave thee," answered Heraklas, firmly. "The men are drinking themselves senseless. I will try what I can do."
He felt the wall till he found that Timokles' chain was held, not by a hook, but a staple. It was only after long labor with his knife around this staple that it shook a little in its hold on the wall. Then Heraklas seized the staple, and swung his whole weight upon it, and dug his knife into the wall like a madman. He worked with perspiration standing on his forehead, his breath coming in pants. Furiously, with all his strength, he dug and pulled till the staple yielded, and he fell down among the prisoners. But the drunken men on deck did not hear.
Heraklas labored on, till at last he threw his arms about his brother.
"Stand up, my Timokles," he begged. "See if thou art not free!"
Timokles arose. Nothing hindered him.
"O Heraklas!" he whispered, trembling with excitement.
"Sit down again and rest, till I help our brethren, also," whispered his brother.
But though Heraklas toiled with all his remaining strength, he succeeded in releasing but one other Christian.
"Leave us," urged the others.
"O my brethren," answered Heraklas with a sob, "would that I could save you!"
But the six Christians answered steadily, "Why weepest thou, brother? We but go to our Father's house before thee."
Then he whose feet Heraklas had released, thanked him most heartily, and all said farewell.
Hours had gone by since Heraklas first came on board the ship. Cautiously he and Timokles and the other Christian crept out of the hold. Every movement of their own affrighted them, though they knew a drunken stupor rested on some of the ship'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 perhaps she should never see again the face of Timokles or Heraklas, the heart of the mother broke within her, and she wailed, "O my sons! My sons!"
"Hush!" warned the messenger, quickly. "Thy slaves will hear thee!"
The mother seized the messenger's arm.
"Tell me where my sons are," she begged. "I will go to them!"
The messenger looked piercingly at her. He, a Christian, had risked much to bring her this message. Dare he trust this woman, known to be a devout worshiper of Egypt's gods? Would she not betray the fleeing Christians?
"What is it, my mother?" he asked gently.—See page 37.
"Tell me where my sons are!" besought the mother with tears. "Oh, tell me! I cannot lose them! What is my home to me without them? I will not betray any Christian! Only tell me; and let me see my sons again!"
Then the messenger saw in the mother's eyes that she spoke truthfully, but he said, "How can I trust thee?"
"I swear by Isis!" implored the mother.
"Nay," returned, the messenger gravely, "it is not meet that a Christian should bind any one by a heathen oath."
The mother cried out, and besought him, declaring that she would depart from Alexandria, if her sons could not dwell there.
"They cannot, except they risk death," stated the messenger "Thou knowest Timokles' life is forfeit. Knowest thou not how many Christians have fled, and what torments Christians who have been brought here from all Egypt have suffered? Wouldst thou thy two sons should suffer in like manner?"
"I will go into exile with them," answered the woman.
"How wilt thou leave this, thy beautiful home?" asked the messenger.
"I will leave it in the care of my kinsmen," she replied.
"It may never be thine again," warned the messenger.
"Hear me, O Christian!", cried the mother passionately "I know not the Christians' God, but the Emperor Severus shall not take away my sons! I care not if he takes my home!"
"Come then with us," answered the messenger. "I trust thee! May the Christian's God cause thee to know Him!"
That day there passed through Alexandria's streets a chariot drawn by two mules. Seated in the chariot a lady and a child rode in state. The charioteer was only a small lad.
Out of the city by the eastern gate, as they had passed so many times before, Cocce and her mother rode. Who would hinder so devout worshipers of the gods from taking a pleasure drive? Alexandria knew nothing yet of Heraklas' defection.
When Alexandria was some distance behind, the lady spoke.
"Stop the chariot," she commanded.
The young lad obeyed. The woman and child descended to the road.
"I would walk," said the woman. "Drive thou home again, and say thou naught. See, here is something for thee."
She gave him some money.
The lad did as he was bidden. The mother of Heraklas had known whom to choose for her charioteer this day.
The chariot receded. It passed out of sight. A distance away from the road, a man rose and beckoned. It was the messenger of the morning, disguised, as a beggar.
They went northerly toward the sea. The mother's straining eyes looked ever forward. How if the Christians had been discovered! How long the way was!
A faintness seized upon her as they neared the sea. What if her sons were not there? She hurried forward.
The sea splashed on the rocks at her feet. The salt splay blew in her face. They were not here! They were not here!
Out of the recesses of the rocks, some forms arose, and Heraklas, as in a dream, saw his mother, his proud mother—she who had burned incense to the sun, she who had once held the sacred sistrum in Amun's temple, she who had taught him to worship Isis, and Osiris, and Horus, and the River Nile—his mother throw her arms about Timokles, and kiss his scarred cheek, and sob on the young Christian's neck, "O my son, I have missed thee so! I have missed thee so!"
Some ten months later, on the desolate, uninhabited western shore of what the Hebrews called "Yam Suph, the Sea of Weeds," known now as the Red Sea, in the country spoken of by the Romans as part of Ethiopia, now named Nubia, a little company of Christians made ready their evening meal.
Down on the shore a little girl sang. Her voice rose exultantly in a hymn of the early Christians:
"Blessed art thou, O Lord; teach me thy judgments.
"O Lord, thou hast been a refuge for us from generation to generation.
"Thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us.
"Thou hast healed my soul in that I have sinned against thee."
"O Lord, to thee I flee for refuge. Teach me to do thy will Because thou art my God; Because thou art the fountain of life In thy light shall we see light. Extend thy mercy to them that know thee."
Timokles went toward the shore to call Cocce. As he returned, he saw his mother standing a little apart from the other Christians and gazing toward the northwest, in the direction of Egypt, as she had often gazed since the Christians took refuge here.
"She misseth her home," thought the young man sadly. "It is but a rough abiding-place here for her. And yet Severus hath not found us. I would that she had come here for the love of Christ, and not for love of her two sons, only! Then she would feel, as the others of us do, that there is no one who hath left house or lands for our Lord's sake, but receiveth a hundred-fold in this life, and in the world to come life everlasting. Oh, I would that my mother might know how near our Lord can be, even in this desert!"
His mother had ceased to speak of Egypt's gods. She had even read somewhat in the Christians' Book. But to Timokles she seemed no nearer to accepting Christ than when she was in Alexandria. How little we know of the heart-experiences of those persons nearest to us!
Timokles drew nearer. His mother heard his step, and turned toward him, but in place of the homesick longing he had expected to see in her eyes, there was a look that thrilled his soul.
"What is it, my mother?" he asked, gently.
"Timokles," she answered softly, "I was thinking but now of Alexandria and of our dear home there. Timokles, if God had not driven me into the desert, would I ever have found him?"
Timokles trembled with exceeding joy. Could she be speaking of the real God, not of Egypt's idols?
"Hast thou found Him—the Christian's God—my mother?" he asked tremulously.
A holy awe looked from his mother's face.
"Did not his Son say, 'Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out'?" she answered. "I have come to him, Timokles—even I, the former worshiper of Isis—and he hath not cast me out."
"O my mother!" murmured Timokles, overcome by the glad tidings. "What more can I ask of him than this!"
The sun sank, and Heraklas raised for the little company the evening hymn of the early church. His mother's voice rose clear and sweet, as all sang:
"Children, praise the Lord, Praise ye the name of the Lord. We praise thee, we hymn thee, we bless thee, Because of the greatness of thy glory. O Lord the King, the Father of Christ, Of the spotless Lamb who taketh away The sin of the world, To thee belongeth praise, To thee belongeth song, To thee belongeth glory, to the God And Father, through the Son, in the Spirit, To the Most Holy, unto ages of ages. Amen."
However long their exile might be, whatever privations they might suffer in this desert place, the little company could sing their praises with gratitude, for now not one voice of their number would be silent. Here they would abide, telling of Christ to every heathen wanderer whom they could seek out in these wilds. And if it should please God that henceforth Egypt might never hold a home for them, yet they could dwell in the deserts beyond Rome's dominion, knowing that He who when on earth had no place to lay his head would be with them. He had delivered the last one of the little company from the snare of false gods.