“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.