At length, however, there must have come a day when for the last time the tomb of the god was crowned with flowers and the “Lamentations of Isis” were recited on the threshold of the sanctuary. And there must have come another day when the cross was carried in triumph up those painted colonnades and the first Christian mass was chanted in the precincts of the heathen. One would like to know how these changes were brought about; whether the old faith died out for want of worshipers, or was expelled with clamor and violence. But upon this point history is vague[60] and the graffiti of the time are silent. We only know for certain that the old went out and the new came in; and that where the resurrected Osiris was wont to be worshiped according to the most sacred mysteries of the Egyptian ritual, the resurrected Christ was now adored after the simple fashion of the primitive Coptic church. And now the holy island, near which it was believed no fish had power to swim or bird to fly and upon whose soil no pilgrim might set foot without permission, became all at once the common property of a populous community. Courts, colonnades, even terraced roofs, were overrun with little crude brick dwellings. A small basilica was built at the lower end of the island. The portico of the great temple was converted into a chapel and dedicated to St. Stephen. “This good work,” says a Greek inscription traced there by some monkish hand of the period, “was done by the well-beloved of God, the Abbot-Bishop Theodore.” Of this same Theodore, whom another inscription styles “the very holy father,” we know nothing but his name. The walls hereabout are full of these fugitive records. “The cross has conquered and will ever conquer,” writes one anonymous scribe. Others have left simple signatures; as, for instance: “I, Joseph,” in one place and “I, Theodosius of Nubia,” in another. Here and there an added word or two give a more human interest to the autograph. So, in the pathetic scrawl of one who writes himself “Johannes, a slave,” we seem to read the story of a life in a single line. These Coptic signatures are all followed by the sign of the cross. The foundation of the little basilica, with its apse toward the east and its two doorways to the west, are still traceable. We set a couple of our sailors one day to clear away the rubbish at the lower end of the nave, and found the font--a rough-stone basin at the foot of a broken column.