Athribis the slave bent lower--lower yet. What was this that he saw?
He was on the roof of the house in Alexandria. Through an open space
beside the wind-sail next to him, he could look into a small room
below.
In that room, his master Heraklas knelt and carefully drew a brick
from its place in the wall. Putting his hand into some hole that
seemed to be behind the bricks, Heraklas produced a roll of papyrus.
He glanced stealthily around, and, kneeling still, unrolled the
writing, and read in eager haste, one hand on the brick, ready at
the sound of any coming footsteps to thrust the papyrus quickly into
the wall again. It was a thing well pleasing to the treacherous soul
of Athribis that he should have discovered some secret of his
master.
"What is the writing, that he hideth it there?" the slave questioned
himself.
Heraklas continued to read. Stretched on his perch, and straining
his neck to look, Athribis deemed the time long. His prying eyes
noted carefully the distance of the loose brick from the floor.
Athribis did not recognize the papyrus as one that he had seen
before. The sight of any papyrus, however, had been distasteful to
him since the night of his adventure on the roof, but he thought the
papyri of that escapade safely burned long ago. He knew that
Heraklas' mother had ordered those destroyed that were found on the
roof. Athribis supposed the one also burnt that had fallen into the
court. What else should have become of it? No suspicion concerning
it had crossed his mind till now.
"Oh, that I could see what he readeth!" wished Athribis vainly.
"What meaneth that large sign? Is it the 'tau'?"
Heraklas farther unrolled the papyrus, and the mark of the cross
that had caught Athribis' eye and had interested him, vanished. The
mark seemed to the slave like the Egyptian "tau" or sign of life;
used afterwards, curiously enough, by the Christians of Europe as a
prefix to inscriptions. Numbers of inscriptions headed by the tau
have remained even to the present time, in early Christian
sepulchres in the Great Oasis.
"If that were the tau, there may be no harm in the writing," thought
Athribis sullenly. "Yet why hideth he here?"
The supposed sign of the tau rolled in sight again, as Heraklas
shifted the papyrus.
Heraklas had discovered the papyrus when it hung from the palm in
the court. Seeing the character of the writing, he had kept the roll
for secret perusal. He conjectured that the thief, supposed to have
been on the roof, might have dropped the roll. During the three
months that had elapsed since Heraklas found the papyrus hanging
from the palm, he had come often to this secret hiding-place. He
knew his mother would destroy the Christians' Book, if she saw it.
He knew the servants were not to be trusted in the matter.
Frequently, during the first month, he had thought that he would
destroy the papyrus, and, as often, he had deferred doing so, so
much was he always drawn back to reading it. At the end of the
second month, Heraklas read with even more eagerness than at first.
Here was something that even the maxims of Ptah-hotep had not
attained. Never had Heraklas seen such a book as this Gospel of
John. Its words followed him when he was not reading. Why should the
words of Jesus of Nazareth cling to one's memory with so persistent
a force? Was it true that "never man spake as this man"?
Even when Heraklas passed outside the city streets, and walked the
northern cliffs beside the sea, he was constrained to remember that
it was along these craggy places that, men said, a century and a
half ago, Mark, the first Christian apostle to Alexandria, had been
dragged by cords, at the time of the feast of the god Serapis. Then,
tradition said, there had arisen a dreadful tempest of hail and
lightning, that destroyed the murderous heathen.
Was the Christian God greater than Serapis, the great deity of
Egypt?
Such thinking sent Heraklas back again to study the papyrus of
John's Gospel. And now Athribis wearied, waiting for Heraklas'
reading to end.
Suddenly Heraklas, attracted perhaps by the silent force that lies
in a human gaze; lifted his head from his reading, and glanced
upward. Athribis had not time to start aside. The eyes of the two
met in a long, piercing gaze! Heraklas sprang to his feet. The
papyrus fell, on the loose brick beside him.
Athribis' head vanished instantly, and Heraklas, snatching the
papyrus, wound it closely, and thrust it into his garments.
He hastily replaced the loose brick. No safe place for the papyrus
would the hole be, hereafter.
When he met Athribis afterwards in a corridor, Heraklas felt his
heart beat more quickly against the hidden roll. But the lad was
stern in outward semblance.
"Athribis!" he said.
The slave bent before the lad.
"How wast thou where I saw thee?" demanded Heraklas.
"I was attending to the salted quail. Thou knowest they are drying
on the roof," explained Athribis, meekly.
Heraklas felt compelled to accept the excuse. There were quail
drying, according to the custom of lower Egypt.
"But what was it that I read in his face, as he looked down at me?"
Heraklas asked himself.
Thenceforward, unspoken, yet felt as surely as though expressed,
there existed in Heraklas' mind a constant suspicion of Athribis.
Heraklas carried the papyrus roll with him, day and night. Well did
he know the danger, but he said to himself that he would not be
dictated to by a servant. That was the ostensible reason he gave
himself for not immediately burning the roll. In reality, he knew
that the words of the Christians' Book had pierced his soul. He
dared not burn the book. He stood before its searching words a
convicted sinner.
The suspicion of veiled surveillance that haunted Heraklas made him
cautious of reading his, papyrus at home. He sought places, to read
it abroad. Hidden among the crags beside the sea, or in the vines on
the banks of Lake Mareotis, Heraklas read, and waged the soul-struggle
that had risen within him.
One day Heraklas had hidden himself among the northern crags beside
the great sea. His eyes were bent upon his roll. He had been reading
John's record of the conversation between Christ and the man who was
born blind.
"Jesus said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God?"
The man whose eyes Christ had opened, answered and said, "Who is he,
Lord, that I might believe on him?"
"Dost thou believe on the Son of God?"
It seemed to Heraklas that there came to him, also, Christ's solemn
question. With awe-struck lips, Heraklas whispered, out of a heart
that craved its answer, "Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on
him?"
Heraklas bent above his roll. The answer of the Lord was there. "It
is He that talketh with thee."
The lad dropped his papyrus, and covered his face. He bowed in awe.
For a long time he knelt there, pouring out his soul in prayer--but
not to Egypt's gods. And that which is written of the blind man was
fulfilled in Heraklas, also--"And he said, Lord, I believe. And he
worshiped him."
When Heraklas rose from his knees, the sun was high in mid-heaven.
It was the time at home when his mother would burn myrrh to the sun.
But no prayer to Re or hymn to Horus escaped Heraklas' lips. How
should he, who rejoiced in the knowledge of sins forgiven, pray more
to false gods?
A holy awe and a great joy wrapped his soul. The burden of sin that
had oppressed him, the hopeless burden which had not ceased to cause
Heraklas misery even when he made offerings to Isis and poured forth
prayers to Serapis, was gone, gone at the touch of Jesus.
Plucking from his girdle his carnelian buckle, that signified to an
Egyptian the blood of Isis, said to wash away the sins of the
wearer, Heraklas leaned forward, and flung the rosy ornament far
into the white foam of the waves below. He could not wear that
heathen sign, even though his mother had given the ornament to him.
"O Isis," murmured Heraklas, as he lost sight of the carnelian
buckle within the waves, "I care not for thy blood! I know whose
blood hath washed away my stain."
With reverent rejoicing, he concealed his papyrus and turned
homeward.
He passed into the great city. A woman was worshiping before a
statue of the god Chonsu, the moon. Heraklas went by quickly, making
no sign of reverence. Glancing back, he saw the woman gazing after
him.
A little farther on stood a statue of Anubis. Other men, as they
passed, gave homage, but Heraklas did not turn his head toward the
idol. He noted, in the stalls and in the shops, the altars and
little idols. When he next went to purchase anything, must he do
reverence? Heraklas met a beggar and dropped a coin into his hand.
"Isis and Osiris bless thee!" wished the suppliant.
Heraklas' lips parted to answer. Should he, who had been blessed of
the Lord, seem to accept the blessing of idols? But the beggar
turned to another giver, and Heraklas hurried on his way.
Before he could reach home, a sacred procession came in sight.
Already Heraklas could plainly see the leopard-skin that fitted over
the linen robes of the Egyptian high priest who was coming. Twelve
or sixteen inferior priests walked beside the superior one. The high
priest's lock of hair, pendant on one side of his head, became more
and more plain to Heraklas with every step of the procession.
"They carry the shrine of the sacred beetle of the sun," suspected
Heraklas. "I cannot meet them!"
He turned, and dashed down the first opening that presented itself.
The passage led him utterly out of his way.
"But better so," meditated Heraklas, "than that I should have met
that skin-dressed priest!"
He stopped an instant. His circuitous way had led him in sight of a
spot where he had once seen the Christian woman, Marcella, and her
daughter Potamiaena, passing on their way to martyrdom. How awful a
form of martyrdom was it that Alexandria visited upon that beautiful
Christian daughter! Gradually, hot, scalding pitch was poured over
her body, in order that she might endure the utmost torture
possible.
Heraklas looked around him at the proud, beautiful city.
"O Alexandria, Alexandria!" he whispered, "in thee is found the
blood of the saints!"
For a moment the thought of such a death, as a Christian's
punishment, overcame him. Yet he remembered that it was through
Potamiaena's martyrdom that the soldier, Basilides, was led to
become a Christian also. He refused to take a pagan oath, and was
brought to martyrdom.
When Heraklas reached home, he was trembling. His short journey had
been freighted with silent meaning.