"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