“Yet I despair not”—he added, after another pause and with a certain sadness in his manner—“I despair not of realizing my inexpressible dream. I have come [pg 88]into possession lately of an ancient and wonder-working formula, whereby I hope to take many steps forward. Listen!
“I discovered by secret means only to be acquired in Egypt, that in a certain wild spot of the Lybian desert one of the oldest and greatest cities of the world was buried in the sand; a city so old that it has no historical record; a people inconceivably wicked, in comparison with whom the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were children sporting in the golden dawn of innocence. This city and these people had been overwhelmed by the same Power which buried the cities of the plain in the Salt Sea.
“I found this spot. By the aid of spiritual powers I burrowed my way into their buried palaces and temples. I exhumed their remains. I made food and drink of their ashes. The spirits who accompanied me fled away, and I was left alone. I blended my being with that of the lost people. I became a skeleton among skeletons, a shade among shades. I conquered. I drew voices out of the silence, forms out of the darkness, life out of death. I summoned with difficulty and danger the ruling spirits of the perished race. I mastered their master. I made him my slave. I compelled him to disgorge the secrets of the wilderness and the grave. I have enriched myself with treasures of knowledge and power, of which no man even dreams.”
Intense excitement pervaded his listeners—fear of the man and stupefaction at his words.
“I will show you,” he continued—“by a strange art I have acquired, I will show you this new demon who is [pg 89]also one of the oldest. I have summoned this antediluvian monster to-night. He stands before me face to face, like man to man. You cannot hear his voice nor see his shape; but you shall feel his presence and mark his shadow on the wall.”
He now let down a large white curtain against the wall, to the top of which it had been rolled like a great map. He resumed his seat and drew forth a curious cup from a drawer in the table. It had words and figures engraven upon it. He gazed intently into the cup, and pronounced some words in an unknown tongue.
A moment of awful silence ensued, every one gazing steadfastly at the curtain and hearing the beating of his own heart. Suddenly a strange, benumbing, paralyzing sensation invaded the nerves of all present. It was the approaching sphere of the antediluvian spirit.
“See!” said the magician hoarsely, “See! He comes!”
And sure enough! Like the shadow of a man which the moon makes when it is going down, there crept a shadow up over the curtain; dim, wavering, misshapen, which slowly settled into distincter form, and stood with bended head and sweeping beard, with tottering knee and outstretched arms, like a very old man of gigantic size begging alms.
All shuddered at the presence of this terrific spirit, more than Saul at the rising of Samuel in the cave of the witch of Endor.