It was the voice of a night-wandering jackal.
Timokles was dizzy to faintness, and staggered as he was driven on.
He had been discovered and taken.

His life had been spared that he might henceforth be a slave.
"I bear this for thy sake, O Lord, dear Lord!" murmured the exhausted lad, as the blows drove him through the pathless desert.
Again came the plaintive cry of the wandering jackal.
"For thy sake!" faintly repeated Timokles.
A few minutes passed, and once more the jackal's inarticulate voice wailed through the desert, but Timokles had fallen, helpless.

A man sprang forward, and the lash fell again and again on Timokles' prostrate body, but the boy did not stir.
"Now see how the Christian would die in the desert, and cheat us of all the work he might do!" grumbled the vexed voice of a dismounted camel-rider.

"He is young.

There are many years of work in him!" "Leave him!" scornfully advised another, who held a torch.