ds of years
before--something in the sight of it lying there and breathing its own
spice-laden atmosphere even in the darkness of its exile in this remote
land, something that pierced to the very core of my being and touched
that root of awe which slumbers in every man near the birth of tears and
the passion of true worship.

I remember turning quickly from the Colonel, lest he should see my
emotion, yet fail to understand its cause, turn and clutch John Silence
by the arm, and then fall trembling to see that he, too, had lowered his
head and was hiding his face in his hands.

A kind of whirling storm came over me, rising out of I know not what
utter deeps of memory, and in a whiteness of vision I heard the magical
old chauntings from the Book of the Dead, and saw the Gods pass by in
dim procession, the mighty, immemorial Beings who were yet themselves
only the personified attributes of the true Gods, the God with the Eyes
of Fire, the God with the Face of Smoke. I saw again Anubis, the
dog-faced deity, and the children of Horus, eternal watcher of the ages,
as they swathed Osiris, the first mummy of the world, in the scented and
mystic bands, and I tasted again something of the ecstasy of the
justified soul as it embarked in the golden Boat of Ra, and journeyed
onwards to rest in the fields of the blessed.

And then, as Dr. Silence, with infinite reverence, stooped and touched
the still face, so dreadfully staring with its painted eyes, there rose
again to our nostrils wave upon wave of this perfume of thousands of
years, and time fled backwards like a thing of naught, showing me in
haunted panorama the most wonderful dream of the whole world.

A gentle hissing became audible in the air, and the doctor moved quickly
backwards. It came close to our faces and then seemed to play about the
walls and ceiling.

"The last of the Fire--still waiting for its full accomplishment," he
muttered; but I heard both words and hissing as things far away, for I
was still busy with the journey of the soul through the Seven Halls of
Death, listening for echoes of the grandest ritual ever known to men.

The earthen plates covered with hieroglyphics still lay beside the
mummy, and round it, carefully arranged at the points of the compass,
stood the four jars with the heads of the hawk, the jackal, the
cynocephalus, and man, the jars in which were placed the hair, the nail
parings, the heart, and other special portions of the body. Ev