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.