This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of thefile for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making anentire meal of them. D.W.]
By Georg Ebers
On the roof of the tower of the pylon by the gate of the Serapeum stoodan astrologer who had mounted to this, the highest part of the temple, toobserve the stars; but it seemed that he was not destined on thisoccasion to fulfil his task, for swiftly driving black clouds swept againand again across that portion of the heavens to which his observationswere principally directed. At last he impatiently laid aside hisinstruments, his waxed tablet and style, and desired the gate-keeper—the father of poor little Philo—whose duty it was to attend at night onthe astrologers on the tower, to carry down all his paraphernalia, as theheavens were not this evening favorable to his labors.
"Favorable!" exclaimed the gate-keeper, catching up the astrologer'swords, and shrugging his shoulders so high that his head disappearedbetween them.
"It is a night of horror, and some great disaster threatens us forcertain. Fifteen years have I been in my place, and I never saw such anight but once before, and the very next day the soldiers of Antiochus,the Syrian king, came and plundered our treasury. Aye—and to-night isworse even than that was; when the dog-star first rose a horrible shapewith a lion's mane flew across the desert, but it was not till midnightthat the fearful uproar began, and even you shuddered when it broke outin the Apis-cave. Frightful things must be coming on us when the sacredbulls rise from the dead and butt and storm at the door with their hornsto break it open. Many a time have I seen the souls of the deadfluttering and wheeling and screaming above the old mausoleums, and rock-tombs of ancient times. Sometimes they would soar up in the air in theform of hawks with men's heads, or like ibises with a slow laggingflight, and sometimes sweep over the desert like gray shapeless shadows,or glide across the sand like snakes; or they would creep out of thetombs, howling like hungry dogs. I have often heard them barking likejackals or laughing like hyenas when they scent carrion, but to-night isthe first time I ever heard them shrieking like furious men, and thengroaning and wailing as if they were plunged in the lake of fire andsuffering horrible torments.
"Look there—out there—something is moving again! Oh! holy father,exorcise them with some mighty bann. Do you not see how they are growinglarger? They are twice the size of ordinary mortals." The astronomertook an amulet in his hand, muttered a few sentences to himself, seekingat 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 theyare melting into one, and growing smaller and smaller—however, perhapsthey are only men come to rob the tombs, and who happen to beparticularly 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 inhis hand, "and if they are robbers why has no watchman called out to stopthem? How is it their screams and groans have not waked the sentinelsthat are posted there every night? There—that was another fearful cry!Did you ever hear such tones from any human breast? Great Serapis, Ishall die of fright!