When Heraklas reached home, he was trembling. His short journey had
been freighted with silent meaning.




CHAPTER VII.


Two men passed out of the Gate of the Sun, the northern gate of
Alexandria, and came to the docks that bordered the Great Port. The
gaze of one man wandered from the promontory of Locrias on the east
to the isle of Pharos on the north, and followed back the dyke that
connected that island with the docks and marked the division between
the Great Port and Alexandria's other harbor, the Port of Eunostus.

"When that ship saileth," remarked the man, indicating a large
vessel moored in the Great Port, "some Christians go as ballast!"

"How knowest thou?" asked the other.

The former speaker smiled.

"Thou didst not see a little procession that came through the Gate
of Necropolis last evening," he conjectured. "Some Christians
brought in from the desert. This ship carrieth them to Rome, to the
lions of the arena."

An unbelieving spirit looked from the other man's eyes.