ut me. The attendants
had departed and we were alone together. He was still standing before me
gazing intently down at my face.

"Rise, son of an alien race," he said, "rise purified for the time of
thy earthly self, and fit to enter and stand in the presence of
Ammon-Ra!"

In response to his command I rose from the stone upon which I had been
lying. Strangely enough, however, I did so without perceptible exertion.
In my new state my body was as light as air, my brain without a cloud,
while the senses of hearing, of sight, of smell, and of touch, were each
abnormally acute.

Taking me by the hand, the old man led me from the room in which the
ceremony of anointing had taken place, along another passage, on either
side of which, as in the apartment we had just left, were a number of
shelves each containing a mummy case. Reaching the end of this passage,
he paused and extinguished the torch he carried, and then, still leading
me by the hand, entered another hall which was in total darkness. In my
new state, however, I experienced no sort of fear, nor was I conscious
of feeling any alarm as to my ultimate safety.

Having brought me to the place for which he was making, he dropped my
hand, and from the shuffling of his feet upon the stone pavement I knew
that he was moving away from me.

"Wait here and watch," he said, and his voice echoed and re-echoed in
that gloomy place. "For it was ordained from the first that this night
thou shouldst see the mysteries of the gods. Fear not, thou art in the
hands of the watcher of the world, the ever mighty Harmachis, who
sleepeth not day or night, nor hath rested since time began."

With this he departed, and I remained standing where he had put me,
watching and waiting for what should follow. To attempt to make you
understand the silence that prevailed would be a waste of time, nor can
I tell you how long it lasted. Under the influence of the mysterious
preparation to which I had been subjected, such things as time, fear and
curiosity had been eliminated from my being.

Suddenly, in the far distance, so small as to make it uncertain whether
it was only my fancy or not, a pin point of light attracted my
attention. It moved slowly to and fro with the regular and
evenly-balanced swing of a pendulum, and as it did so it grew larger and
more brilliant. Such was the fascination it possessed for me that I
could not take my eyes off it, and as I watched it everything grew
bright as