"Dost them who hast entered," asked the priest, pointing at Phut, "know what this sign on the curtain signifies?"
"The globe," answered the stranger, "is an image of the world on which we live; the wings indicate that it is borne through space like an eagle."
"And the serpents?" asked the priest.
"The two serpents remind him who is wise that whoso betrays the great secret will die a double death, he will die soul and body."
After a moment of silence the priest continued,
"If Thou art in real fact Beroes" (here he inclined his head), "the great prophet of Chaldea" (he inclined his head a second time), "for whom there is no secret in heaven or on earth, be pleased to inform thy servant which star is the most wonderful."
"Wonderful is Hor-set, [Jupiter] which encircles heaven in the course of twelve years; for four smaller stars go around it. But the most wonderful is Horka, [Saturn] which encircles heaven in thirty years; for it has subject to it not only stars, but a great ring which vanishes sometimes."
On hearing this, the Egyptian priest prostrated himself before the Chaldean. Then he gave him a purple scarf and a muslin veil, indicated where the incense was, and left the cave with low obeisances.
The Chaldean remained alone. He put the scarf on his right shoulder, covered his face with the veil, and, taking a golden spoon sprinkled into it incense, which he lighted at the lamp before the curtain. Whispering, he turned three times in a circle, and the smoke of the incense surrounded him with a triple ring, as it were.
During this time a wonderful disturbance prevailed in the cave. It seemed as if the top were rising and the sides spreading out. The t purple curtain at the altar quivered, as if moved by hidden fingers. The air began to move in waves, as if flocks of unseen birds were flying through it.