"Hail to thee, O Ptahtanen," began Heraklas, "great god who concealeth his form, . . thou art watching when at rest; the father of all fathers and of all gods. . . Watcher, who traversest the endless ages of eternity." The familiar words brought no comfort. Between him and the shimmering desert came the memory of his brother's face, and Heraklas forgot Ptahtanen, and cried out again in desperation. His eyes strained toward the desert. Somewhere in its depths, his twin brother Timokles, the being whom of all on earth Heraklas most loved, lived,--or perhaps, in the brief week that had elapsed since he was snatched from his Alexandrian home, had died. Timokles had forsaken the gods of his own family, the gods his own dead father had adored, Egypt's gods. The lad would not even worship the gods of Rome. Timokles had become one of the Christians, and had, in consequence, been falsely accused of having, during a former inundation, cut one of the dykes near the Nile. This offense, in the days of Roman rule, was punishable by condemnation to labor in the mines, or by branding and transportation to an oasis of the desert. Timokles, innocent of the crime charged upon him,--having been at home in Alexandria during the time when he was accused of having been abroad on the evil errand,--was dragged away to exile, for was he not a Christian? Living or dead, the desert held him. The Roman emperor, Septimius Severus, who ruled Egypt, had lately issued an edict that no one should become a Christian. What hope was there for Timokles? "He will never come back!" said Heraklas now, with a low sob, as the desert swam before his tear-filled eyes. "O Timokles!" There was a rustle among the leaves not far away. Heraklas turned hastily. But it was no person who disturbed his solitude. Heraklas saw only the head of an ibis, called "Hac" or "Hib" by the Egyptians, and the lad, mindful of the honor due the bird as sacred to the god Thoth, the Egyptian deity of letters and of the moon, made a gesture of semi-reverence. He remembered what the Egyptians were wont to say, when on the nineteenth day of the first month, they ate honey and eggs in honor of Thoth: "How sweet a thing is truth!" Heraklas murmured with a heavy sigh, "Timokles told me he had found 'the truth' O Timokles, is thy 'truth' sweet to thee now? Oh, my brother, my brother!" Heraklas cast himself down among the vines, and wept his unavailing tears. Little did the lad, reared in a pagan home, know of the sweetness of the Christian faith, for which Timokles had forsaken all.