Part 5 (2/2)
The girl looked alarmed. She drew back.
”Did he come to thee?” she asked in a terrified whisper. ”O Christian, no one ever before came back from the House of the Leopard! O Christian; I am afraid of thy G.o.d!”
There was real terror in her voice. Timokles was moved with compa.s.sion. He leaned forward, eager to explain to her the truth.
What should he say?
”He is a great G.o.d, the only G.o.d!” whispered Timokles, reverently.
”O maiden, he is not like an idol! He is the only G.o.d. Thou canst not see him, yet he seeth and loveth thee. Speak to him, and he will hear. He loveth us. He sent his Son to die for our sins. For that Son's sake, O maiden, he will blot out our sins, if we entreat him.
O maiden, pray no more to idols! Lo, I tell you of the true G.o.d!”
He hardly knew whether she understood or not. She gazed at him as if half comprehending his words, and then the fact of his having returned from the House of the Leopard seemed to overwhelm every other thought, and she murmured, ”O Christian, I am afraid of thy G.o.d and thee!”
She fled back to the black tent. Timokles' bound hands made but awkward work of eating. He could hear the voices of the mother and the daughter talking in the mother's tongue, but what they said he knew not. Would the father or the son learn something about their captive?
The voices hushed within the tent. The hours of sleep came on.
The night had grown black. There were footsteps audible.
”They have come back!” thought Timokles.
The father and the son had returned, and with them came another man.
Timokles heard and understood something of what was said at the tent's door in the dark.
”If I may but see his face, I shall know whether he hath been here before,” declared the new voice eagerly. ”I have seen all who have come to our village.”
”Thou shalt see him in the morning,” impatiently answered the maker of the hippopotamus. ”Knowest thou not that on this day I cannot make a flame by which thou shouldest see? It is the eleventh day of Tybi, concerning which it is commanded by the priests of Egypt, 'Approach not any flame on this day; Ra is there for the purpose of destroying the wicked.'”
”I fear no flame!” muttered the new voice discontentedly. ”Let me but see the stranger!”
”There shall no flame be kindled!” burst out in wrath the superst.i.tious father. ”Bide thou till morning! Then shalt thou see the branded one.”
Silence followed. The discontented villager did not dare say more.
After a short time, the quietness of slumber seemed to envelop the black tent.
Concealed by the dark, Timokles endeavored with his teeth to loosen the bonds of his wrists. After prolonged attempts, he undid one knot, and by successive wearisome trials he at length entirely released his left hand.
Timokles was near the black tent. It seemed to him that he heard the faintest stir within. But a long silence followed, and he thought he had been mistaken.
Timokles tugged at the thongs of his right hand. His arm was lame from the leopard's claws, and he could not reach the knots that held him. He struggled mightily, till at last he lay exhausted, no nearer free than before.
”I cannot do it!” he despaired.
He must wait for dawn, for recognition, and for death, such death as was thought meet for a Christian. Timokles shut his eyes, and prayed.
”Be with me, be with me, O Lord!” besought Timokles.
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