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.