“Look there—­out there—­something is moving again!  Oh! holy father, exorcise them with some mighty bann.  Do you not see how they are growing larger?  They are twice the size of ordinary mortals.”  The astronomer took an amulet in his hand, muttered a few sentences to himself, seeking at the same time to discover the figures which had so scared the gate-keeper.

“They are indeed tall,” he said when he perceived them.  “And now they are melting into one, and growing smaller and smaller—­however, perhaps they are only men come to rob the tombs, and who happen to be particularly tall, for these figures are not of supernatural height.”

“They are twice as tall as you, and you are not short,” cried the gate-keeper, pressing his lips devoutly to the amulet the astrologer held in his hand, “and if they are robbers why has no watchman called out to stop them?  How is it their screams and groans have not waked the sentinels that are posted there every night?  There—­that was another fearful cry!  Did you ever hear such tones from any human breast?  Great Serapis, I shall die of fright!  Come down with me, holy father, that I may look after my little sick boy, for those who have seen such sights do not escape unstricken.”

The peaceful silence of the Necropolis had indeed been disturbed, but the spirits of the departed had no share in the horrors which had been transacted this night in the desert, among the monuments and rocktombs.  They were living men that had disturbed the calm of the sacred place, that had conspired with darkness in cold-blooded cruelty, greater than that of evil spirits, to achieve the destruction of a fellow-man; but they were living men too who, in the midst of the horrors of a most fearful night, had experienced the blossoming in their own souls of the divinest germ which heaven implants in the bosom of its mortal children.  Thus in a day of battle amid blood and slaughter may a child be born that shall grow up blessed and blessing, the comfort and joy of his family.

The lion-maned monster whose appearance and rapid disappearance in the desert had first alarmed the gate-keeper, had been met by several travellers on its way to Memphis, and each and all, horrified by its uncanny aspect, had taken to flight or tried to hide themselves—­and yet it was no more than a man with warm pulses, an honest purpose, and a true and loving heart.  But those who met him could not see into his soul, and his external aspect certainly bore little resemblance to that of other men.

His feet, unused to walking, moved but clumsily, and had a heavy body to carry, and his enormous beard and the mass of gray hair on his head—­ which he turned now this way and now that—­gave him an aspect that might well scare even a bold man who should meet him unexpectedly.  Two stall-keepers who, by day, were accustomed to offer their wares for sale near the Serapeum to the pilgrims, met him close to the city.