Out of the Triangle: A Story of the Far East

o air of bravado about him, but with an expression

?" questioned the merchant. "D

d Timokles eagerly. "Deat

ur sm

rthage knew of it! Didst thou not hear what was done last year at Carthage? Didst tho

ough Pentaur, as

the old man, 'have pity on my gray hairs. Have compassion on thy father!' He wept at her feet. 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 priso

r had groaned. His face

oomed her to death, tried to draw her from the platform. He was struck with a stick, and the judge

Pentaur. Timokles hesitated

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, a

once more. Sti

ither 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

his feet, and put

"Oh, no more! No mo

okles 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

ntured no f

ng Christian. The memory of Vivia Perpetua might pierce the

he 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 god figured to be like a man having the head and horns of a ram. The statue of

Fountain of the Sun in the oasis, and watched the bubbles th

ou in very truth a Christian?" contemptuou

d," gently ans

in this oasis, then,"

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

. At a short distance stood Pentaur the merchant, surrounded by a g

t made a careless ges

stian!" shoute

the village, past palm trees and resting camels, toward the north. Breathlessly the men dragged him a long distance over the rising ground. N

ing. Then the company reached a spot where part of the house was still standing. Here a barr

fell from Timokles.

ommanded, a man. "Other

him was a hall-way, leading into the por

and shut the door behind him. He heard the sound of bars that fastene

floated in the heavy air. Timokles hesitated, fearing h

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

the huge, sleeping leopard, Timokles put out his hand to take hold of the door

wall's surface. Surely the door had been here! There was no ha

orce now against the wall. He tried it softly, cautiously, here and there, till he had passed over the entire space in whic

oom'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 Timokle

door through which had so mysteriously disappeared. His eyes, between quick glances at the sleep

o place?" h

lt of the opposite wall. It was immovable.

les, stirred a little. The claws of one foot were drawn up. The

m 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

pe; however, and he reflected that if the roof had been lower, the place would hardly have been chosen for the confinemen

ard stir

mokles, summoning his

ead to a somewhat more comfortable

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

om the roof. The crunching sound partly aroused the leopard. With a long-drawn sigh, the drows

e instant when he should be discovered, had a fleeting memory of that leopard-

the martyr Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, who was sent to Rome to fight with wild beasts: "I am God's wheat

d had been standing, looking around half s