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.