ful prayers a little I am captain of the gate, and shall have it closed directly. Ho! guard there! Felix! order the gates to be shut on that rascally crew, and mind they be not opened till we have rain."
The man to whom the message was given, laughed and went on his errand. Meanwhile the Christians with their Bishops and Priests had crossed a hot and arid bit of sand to the foot of some low hills where among the rocks the hard aloes with their strange horny leaves flourished. Here and there too were tufts of palms, and in one place a patch of withered vegetation showed the position of a dried spring. Hard by was the Church of S. Timothy, of plain oblong form, with only a rough cross of four equal arms cut into the stone over the door to distinguish it from any other building. It was a very small edifice with a flat roof, the eastern end had benches running round the walls, on which the Priests sat, the extreme east was occupied by the Bishop's stone chair; before it was a great stone block which served as an Altar; the remaining portion of the Church, was filled with people, divided into two divisions according to their sex, while the catechumens were kept without by the ostiarii or door-keepers.
After the Bishop had chanted a supplication for rain, all the people answering, Amen, he celebrated the Divine Mysteries while all the people lay with their faces reverently on the ground.
