What else should have become of it?
No suspicion concerning it had crossed his mind till now.
"Oh, that I could see what he readeth!" wished Athribis vainly.
"What meaneth that large sign?
Is it the 'tau' ?" Heraklas farther unrolled the papyrus, and the mark of the cross that had caught Athribis' eye and had interested him, vanished.

The mark seemed to the slave like the Egyptian "tau" or sign of life; used afterwards, curiously enough, by the Christians of Europe as a prefix to inscriptions.

Numbers of inscriptions headed by the tau have remained even to the present time, in early Christian sepulchres in the Great Oasis.
"If that were the tau, there may be no harm in the writing," thought Athribis sullenly.

"Yet why hideth he here ?" The supposed sign of the tau rolled in sight again, as Heraklas shifted the papyrus.
Heraklas had discovered the papyrus when it hung from the palm in the court.

Seeing the character of the writing, he had kept the roll for secret perusal.