Two men passed out of the Gate of the Sun, the northern gate of Alexandria, and came to the docks that bordered the Great Port.

The gaze of one man wandered from the promontory of Locrias on the east to the isle of Pharos on the north, and followed back the dyke that connected that island with the docks and marked the division between the Great Port and Alexandria's other harbor, the Port of Eunostus.
"When that ship saileth," remarked the man, indicating a large vessel moored in the Great Port, "some Christians go as ballast!" "How knowest thou ?" asked the other.
The former speaker smiled.
"Thou didst not see a little procession that came through the Gate of Necropolis last evening," he conjectured.

"Some Christians brought in from the desert.

This ship carrieth them to Rome, to the lions of the arena." An unbelieving spirit looked from the other man's eyes.
"When the Christians see that ship waiting for them, they will recant," he prophesied.

"A man doth not readily take shipping for the port of a lion's mouth!" "Thou dost not know the Christians," asserted the other.