His face wore a wonderful expression, half triumph, half
admiration. Even as Colonel Wragge spoke, it seemed to me that this visible
darkness began to increase, pouring up thickly out of the ground by
the hearth, rising up in sheets and veils, shrouding our eyes and
faces. It stole up from below--an awful blackness that seemed to drink
in all the radiations of light in the building, leaving nothing but
the ghost of a radiance in their place. Then, out of this rising sea
of shadows, issued a pale and spectral light that gradually spread
itself about us, and from the heart of this light I saw the shapes of
fire crowd and gather. And these were not human shapes, or the shapes
of anything I recognised as alive in the world, but outlines of fire
that traced globes, triangles, crosses, and the luminous bodies of
various geometrical figures. They grew bright, faded, and then grew
bright again with an effect almost of pulsation. They passed swiftly
to and fro through the air, rising and falling, and particularly in
the immediate neighbourhood of the Colonel, often gathering about his
head and shoulders, and even appearing to settle upon him like giant
insects of flame. They were accompanied, moreover, by a faint sound of
hissing--the same sound we had heard that afternoon in the plantation. “The fire-elementals that precede their master,” the doctor said in an
undertone. “Be ready.”

And while this weird display of the shapes of fire alternately flashed
and faded, and the hissing echoed faintly among the dim rafters
overhead, we heard the awful voice issue at intervals from the lips of
the afflicted soldier. It was a voice of power, splendid in some way I
cannot describe, and with a certain sense of majesty in its cadences,
and, as I listened to it with quickly-beating heart, I could fancy it
was some ancient voice of Time itself, echoing down immense corridors
of stone, from the depths of vast temples, from the very heart of
mountain tombs. “I have seen my divine Father, Osiris,” thundered the great tones. “I
have scattered the gloom of the night. I have burst through the earth,
and am one with the starry Deities!”

Something grand came into the soldier’s face. He was staring fixedly
before him, as though seeing nothing. “Watch,” whispered Dr. Silence in my ear, and his whisper seemed to
come from very far away. Again the mouth opened and the awesome voice issued forth. “Thoth,” it boomed, “has loosened the bandages of Set which fettered my
mouth. I have taken my place in the great winds of heaven.”

I heard the little wind of night, with its mournful voice of ages,
sighing round the walls and over the roof. “Listen!” came from the doctor at my side, and the thunder of the voice
continued--

“I have hidden myself with you, O ye stars that never diminish. I
remember my name--in--the--House--of--Fire!”

The voice ceased and the sound died away. Something about the face and
figure of Colonel Wragge relaxed, I thought. The terrible look passed
from his face. The Being that obsessed him was gone. “The great Ritual,” said Dr. Silence aside to me, very low, “the Book
of the Dead. Now it’s leaving him. Soon the blood will fashion it a
body.”

Colonel Wragge, who had stood absolutely motionless all this time,
suddenly swayed, so that I thought he was going to fall,--and, but for
the quick support of the doctor’s arm, he probably would have fallen,
for he staggered as in the beginning of collapse. “I am drunk with the wine of Osiris,” he cried,--and it was half with
his own voice this time--“but Horus, the Eternal Watcher, is about my
path--for--safety.” The voice dwindled and failed, dying away into
something almost like a cry of distress. “Now, watch closely,” said Dr. Silence, speaking loud, “for after the
cry will come the Fire!”

I began to tremble involuntarily; an awful change had come without
warning into the air; my legs grew weak as paper beneath my weight and
I had to support myself by leaning on the table. Colonel Wragge, I
saw, was also leaning forward with a kind of droop. The shapes of fire
had vanished all, but his face was lit by the red lamps and the pale
shifting moonlight rose behind him like mist. We were both gazing at the bowl, now almost empty; the Colonel stooped
so low I feared every minute he would lose his balance and drop into
it; and the shadow, that had so long been in process of forming, now at
length began to assume material outline in the air before us. Then John Silence moved forward quickly. He took his place between us
and the shadow. Erect, formidable, absolute master of the situation, I
saw him stand there, his face calm and almost smiling, and fire in his
eyes. His protective influence was astounding and incalculable. Even
the abhorrent dread I felt at the sight of the creature growing into
life and substance before us, lessened in some way so that I was able
to keep my eyes fixed on the air above the bowl without too vivid a
terror. But as it took shape, rising out of nothing as it were, and growing
momentarily more defined in outline, a period of utter and wonderful
silence settled down upon the building and all it contained. A hush of
ages, like the sudden centre of peace at the heart of the travelling
cyclone, descended through the night, and out of this hush, as out of
the emanations of the steaming blood, issued the form of the ancient
being who had first sent the elemental of fire upon its mission. It
grew and darkened and solidified before our eyes. It rose from just
beyond the table so that the lower portions remained invisible, but I
saw the outline limn itself upon the air, as though slowly revealed by
the rising of a curtain. It apparently had not then quite concentrated
to the normal proportions, but was spread out on all sides into space,
huge, though rapidly condensing, for I saw the colossal shoulders, the
neck, the lower portion of the dark jaws, the terrible mouth, and then
the teeth and lips--and, as the veil seemed to lift further upon the
tremendous face--I saw the nose and cheek bones. In another moment I
should have looked straight into the eyes----

But what Dr. Silence did at that moment was so unexpected, and took me
so by surprise, that I have never yet properly understood its nature,
and he has never yet seen fit to explain in detail to me. He uttered
some sound that had a note of command in it--and, in so doing, stepped
forward and intervened between me and the face. The figure, just
nearing completeness, he therefore hid from my sight--and I have always
thought purposely hid from my sight. “The fire!” he cried out. “The fire! Beware!”

There was a sudden roar as of flame from the very mouth of the pit,
and for the space of a single second all grew light as day. A blinding
flash passed across my face, and there was heat for an instant that
seemed to shrivel skin, and flesh, and bone. Then came steps, and I
heard Colonel Wragge utter a great cry, wilder than any human cry I
have ever known.