Out of the Triangle Part 3

He begged her to have pity on her little child. But she could not give up Christ. Wert thou there, O Pentaur, when the governor examined the prisoners? Didst thou see Vivia Perpetua's old father press forward, carrying her babe in his arms, and beg her to recant for the child's sake? Didst thou hear the judge ask her, 'Art thou then a Christian?' and didst thou hear her answer, 'I am'?"

Timokles paused. Pentaur had groaned. His face was hidden in his hands.

"And then," continued Timokles, "the wretched father, hearing his daughter speak those words that doomed her to death, tried to draw her from the platform. He was struck with a stick, and the judge condemned Vivia Perpetua and Felicitas, with the other Christians, to be exposed to the wild beasts."

Another low groan broke from Pentaur. Timokles hesitated an instant, then hurried on:

"The Christians were to die in the amphitheatre of Carthage. At the gate of the amphitheatre, the guards offered the men among the Christians the red mantle of the priests of Saturn, and offered the women the fillet worn by the priestesses of Ceres. But the Christians refused. 'We have come here,' they said, 'of our own free will, that we might not be deprived of our freedom. We have forfeited our lives in order to be delivered from doing such things.' Even the heathen could see the justice of this, and the Christians were not compelled to wear the things. In the amphitheatre, Vivia Perpetua and Felicitas were put into a net, and allowed to be attacked by a wild cow. Then the two martyrs gave each other the kiss of peace, and a gladiator killed them."

Timokles paused once more. Still no response.

"I remember hearing one thing more concerning Vivia Perpetua,"

ventured Timokles. "In prison she had had a vision. She thought she saw a golden ladder stretching up to heaven, and on either side of the ladder were swords, and spears, and knives. At the foot of the ladder lay a dragon. Perpetua thought in her vision that she was commanded to mount the ladder. She set her foot on the dragon's head, saying, 'He will not harm me, in the name of Jesus Christ,'

and went up the ladder. At the top she found a large garden, and the Good Shepherd met her."

Pentaur sprang to his feet, and put out a shaking hand.

"No more!" he cried. "Oh, no more! No more! O Vivia, Vivia!"

With a groan of anguish, Pentaur looked upward, as if behind the desert's sky he might see again that youthful face, the face of that sweet Christian with whom he had been acquainted from childhood and whom he had last seen dying in Carthage's amphitheatre. Little did Timokles know how the memory of Vivia Perpetua's death hour had haunted Pentaur. They had been children together in Carthage, and the martyrdom that Vivia Perpetua had suffered in her young womanhood had impressed Pentaur more than all the agony he had seen other Christians endure. When she gave up her life, he had clinched his hands, and muttered fierce words against Carthage's G.o.ds, words he afterward trembled to recall. He served those G.o.ds now, yet he revered the memory of the Christian, Vivia Perpetua, as of one of the holiest of women.

Timokles ventured no further words.

Pentaur summoned a slave, and committed to his care the young Christian. The memory of Vivia Perpetua might pierce the merchant's soul, but would not avail for Timokles' release.

Bound to another slave to prevent escape, Timokles traveled with the company that night, and before morning the oasis of Ammon, "Oasis Ammonia," was reached. It was a green and shady valley, several miles long and three broad, in the midst of sand-hills. Here, over five hundred years before, had come the founder of Alexandria, Alexander the Great, to visit the oracle of Ammon, the G.o.d figured to be like a man having the head and horns of a ram. The statue of Amun-Ra had then been loaded with jewels, through the reverence of the merchants who halted their caravans at this oasis, and who left their treasures in the strong rooms of the temple, while resting the camels under the palm trees.

All this Timokles remembered, as he stood beside the steaming Fountain of the Sun in the oasis, and watched the bubbles that constantly rose to the surface of that famous body of water.

"O branded-cheeked cutter of d.y.k.es, art thou in very truth a Christian?" contemptuously asked the slave that guarded Timokles.

"I am, O friend," gently answered the lad.

"Ill shalt thou fare in this oasis, then," threatened the slave.

Timokles' eyes wandered over the landscape. The surface of the oasis was undulating, and on the north it rose into high, limestone hills.

Date palms abounded near by Timokles. He could see the inhabitants of the village, and the wanderers from farther, more isolated homes.

The oasis was composed of several disconnected tracts, and Timokles heard that in the western part of the oasis there was a lake.

Suddenly the lad became aware of a number of angrily excited voices.

At a short distance stood Pentaur the merchant, surrounded by a group of men, but what he said was lost in the confusion of tongues.

At length the merchant made a careless gesture, and walked away.

"Take the Christian!" shouted fierce voices.

A man ran straight from the group to Timokles. Without a word the man seized the lad. Other hands a.s.sisted, and Timokles was hurried away from the village, past palm trees and resting camels, toward the north. Breathlessly the men dragged him a long distance over the rising ground. No word of explanation was uttered. Timokles was swept along, till at length the silent, determined company came to a solitary, ruined building.

Timokles was pulled over the fallen stones, across what had once been the court of the dwelling. Then the company reached a spot where part of the house was still standing. Here a barred door shut off further progress, but two of the men with great effort opened the entrance.

All grasping hands fell from Timokles. The company waited.

"Go in, O Christian," commanded, a man. "Others have gone before thee!"

Timokles looked fixedly forward. Before him was a hall-way, leading into the portion of the dwelling-house yet remaining.

Timokles stepped forward. Eager hands pushed him quickly into the hall and shut the door behind him. He heard the sound of bars that fastened the door securely at his back. He was alone. What building was this?

He felt here and there in the dark hall. A peculiar odor floated in the heavy air. Timokles hesitated, fearing he knew not what. His eyes could not pierce the deep gloom.

Resolving to see whither the hall led, he groped on, wondering if this were the place in which the inhabitants of the oasis were wont to confine prisoners. He came to a door. It opened readily to his touch, and he pa.s.sed into what had once been a large dwelling-room.

He stepped softly forward, noting the emptiness and desolation of the place. The peculiar odor of the air was more noticeable than before, but it was not till he had reached the middle of the darkened room, and stood gazing about him, that he perceived at the farther end, in the shadows, a s.p.a.ce of yellowish fawn color, and then saw manifold dark spots, also, that shaped themselves into a large, living form.

Timokles drew one quick breath. He softly retreated. Keeping his eyes fixed on the huge, sleeping leopard, Timokles put out his hand to take hold of the door through which he had come. His groping fingers found nothing but the blank wall!

Hastily turning with alarm, Timokles pa.s.sed his hand over the wall's surface. Surely the door had been here! There was no handle, no line in the wall to indicate the existence of a door.

How silently it had swung shut, when he had come through! He remembered that there had been no noise. He pressed his full force now against the wall. He tried it softly, cautiously, here and there, till he had pa.s.sed over the entire s.p.a.ce in which he knew the door must be, and yet the wall stood apparently blank and whole before him! The other walls seemed to be solid.

With beating heart, Timokles pushed once more at the part.i.tion. It remained firm. Trembling with the shock of his sudden entrapping, Timokles looked toward the room's far end. It was as he thought. The beast was not chained. The sleeping leopard's spotted hide heaved softly yet, with undisturbed breathing, and as Timokles watched across the s.p.a.ce, he remembered the ominous words spoken to him on his entrance into this building: "Go in, O Christian! Others have gone before thee!"

For a time, overcome by the horror of his situation, Timokles leaned against the part.i.tion, the door through which had so mysteriously disappeared. His eyes, between quick glances at the sleeping leopard, searched with desperate intensity every part of the room, for some means of escape.

"Is there no place?" he questioned.

Stealthily he crossed the apartment, and felt of the opposite wall.

It was immovable. Nowhere in it could he discover any opening.

The beautiful beast, the waking of which meant so much to Timokles, stirred a little. The claws of one foot were drawn up. Then the foot was relaxed again. The leopard continued to slumber.

High above Timokles were two small windows, closed by wooden shutters. The half-ruined flat roof showed holes here and there where the old palm branches of its construction, covered with mats and plastered with mud, had given way. Had it not been for these holes in the roof, Timokles would hardly have had light enough to perceive the leopard, for the wooden shutters of the two windows prevented their being of much service.

Even with the roof's holes, the room was dark. The rents in the roof were much too far above Timokles to help him to escape; however, and he reflected that if the roof had been lower, the place would hardly have been chosen for the confinement of a wild beast, the present height of the walls preventing the escape of the leopard, as well as that of any Christian.

The leopard stirred again!

"He wakes!" thought Timokles, summoning his courage for that waking.

But the great cat only moved his head to a somewhat more comfortable position, and continued to sleep.

Timokles repa.s.sed slowly and silently so much of the walls as was accessible to him. The wall next to the sleeping beast could not be safely examined, yet Timokles, looking through the gloom, noted from his distance no more promising signs than were exhibited by the other three sides of the room. Most of all did he linger about the spot where, it seemed to him, he had entered, and more than once as he touched the surface of the wall, seeking for some hidden spring, he thought he heard behind him the leopard's soft footsteps, but, turning hastily, found himself mistaken.

At length, in his search, Timokles slightly stumbled over some lumps of mud that had fallen from the roof. The crunching sound partly aroused the leopard. With a long-drawn sigh, the drowsy creature stirred and rose slowly to his feet, stretching himself. He did not yet see Timokles.

How beautiful the spotted hide was! Timokles, watching with steady eyes for the instant when he should be discovered, had a fleeting memory of that leopard-skin that covered a seat at home in.

Alexandria. He would never sit there again.

Even in these dread moments of suspense, there flashed across Timokles' mind the memory of the saying of the martyr Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, who was sent to Rome to fight with wild beasts: "I am G.o.d's wheat; the teeth of the fierce beasts will but bruise me, that I may be changed into the fine bread of my G.o.d."