If they could have reached the cave, not one of the warriors would have dared to enter it, as their superstitious fears would have prevented them, but outside the cave they had no such feelings. It was fortunate, therefore, that John and the boys were there to prevent them from entering.
As they were going down the hill, John exhibited a curious cross, He had found it in the cave, just before he advised the boys to go out. It was made of stone, and one of the limbs had a hole near its end, which indicated that it had been carried as a charm.
"Isn't that singular? Why should the natives have the Christian sign of the cross?"
"That is one of the earliest symbols that the world knows. Its use goes back beyond the earliest period of history. It was the favorite figure used by the astronomers and astrologers of the ancient Babylonians, fully four or five thousand years ago. The clay tablets and stone monuments of the Persians contained them; the Hittites, in the earliest Jewish times, used them; and the ancient Egyptians decorated the High Priests officiating in the temples with figures of the cross."
"It seems to me that if it was used by peoples in different parts of the earth, there must have been some reason for it."
"One of the well-known forms found in the inscriptions shows the cross within a circle. This seems to be the meaning of the phrase in Isaiah which says the 'four ends of the earth.' In Bible times the earth was known to be round, so that the expression used in the Bible about the 'circle of the earth,' and the four ends, seem to point clearly to the cross within the circle, to indicate the four points of the compass."