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Out of the Triangle: a story of the Far East By: Mary E. (Mary Ellen) Bamford |
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A STORY OF THE FAR EAST. BY MARY E. BAMFORD. CONTENTS OUT OF THE TRIANGLE
THE SQUASH OF THE ESVIDOS
THE VERSE MARTIN READ
BY THE WAY
AT COUSIN HARRIET'S
COMALE'S REVENGE
AT THE PANADERIA
MISS STRATTON'S PAPER
AN HONEST DAY'S WORK
TIMOTEO
THE VICTORY OF QUANG PO
THE NEW IGLOO
OUT OF THE TRIANGLE
CHAPTER I.
A voice rang through one of the streets of Alexandria. "Sinners, away, or keep your eyes to the ground! Keep your eyes to
the ground!" The white robed priestesses of Ceres, carrying a sacred basket,
walked in procession through the Alexandrian street, and as they
walked they cried aloud their warning. So, for four centuries, since the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, had
priestesses of Ceres walked and called aloud their admonitions
through this city; though of late years men had come to know that
what the sacred basket held was a live snake, supposed to be the
author of sin and death. Before the great temple of Ceres in the southeast quarter of the
city, the crier stood on the steps of the portico, and proclaimed
his invitation: "All ye who are clean of hands and pure of heart,
come to the sacrifice! All ye who are guiltless in thought and deed,
come to the sacrifice!" Among the passing people, the lad Heraklas shrank back. When the
sacred basket of Ceres had met him, he had bent his eyes downward,
deeming himself unworthy of the sight. And now, as the crier's
invitation rang from the portico, "All ye who are guiltless in
thought and deed, come to the sacrifice!" Heraklas trembled. Swiftly he hurried away and passed down the broad street that led to
the Gate of the Moon on the south of Alexandria. At length he reached the gate, but swiftly yet he pushed forward a
short distance along the vineyard fringed banks of Lake Mareotis.
Heraklas lifted up his eyes, and marked how the vines by the lake's
side contrasted with the burning whiteness of the desert beyond. The
glaring sand shimmered in the heat of the flaming Egyptian sun. A
thin, vapory mist seemed to move above the heated, barren surface of
the grim sea of sand. Heraklas stretched out his hands in agony
toward the desert, and cried aloud, "O my brother, my brother
Timokles! How shall I live without thee?" The soft ripple of the lake beside him seemed like mockery. The
tears rolled slowly down his cheeks, as he looked toward the
pitilessly unresponsive desert of the west and southwest. Then
Heraklas, helpless in his misery, raised his hands with the palms
outward before him, after the custom of an Egyptian in prayer, and
addressed him whom the Egyptians thought the maker of the sun, the
god Phthah, "the father of the beginnings," "the first of the gods
of the upper world." "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... Continue reading book >>
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Short stories |
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