The Chinese gong sounded once, twice, three times, and Doctor Cadaverezzi struck an attitude of awe, as if some terrifying supernatural event was about to take place. Indeed, according to him, it was.

“The hour of the Ibis is at hand!” he announced in solemn tones. “As prophesied in the ancient almanacs, we are about to witness the rebirth of that sacred princess known to the high priests as Nephthys! She has slumbered in the pyramids for ten thousand years—but tonight she shall rise and speak to us in the hieroglyphics of her native tongue. Ladies and gentlemen—the princess Nephthys!”

Some strange chords were sounded on a muffled harp and a cloud of smoke rolled out of the Cabinet; and from out of the smoke, robed in white and with a diadem of gold on her brow, her hands folded across her breast and her eyes cast mystically upward, stepped my second surprise of the night: Lucy.

So she had come here! And—

In a second or so, Count Karlstein—he’d already risen from his chair—would have her in his grasp. There was only one thing to do.

“Fire! Fire!” I shouted, and jumped down and flung the door wide. “Help! Fire! Fire!”

It worked. Within a moment, the whole parlor was in an uproar. Those at the back looked around nervously, those at the front struggled to push their way to the back, those in the middle were caught uncertainly between the two of them. And I stood outside, banging two trays together and yelling at the top of my voice. Soon the door was jammed, and arms and legs and roaring heads were all flailing this way and that, trying to get out.

But in the second or so after I’d shouted, I’d seen Lucy open her eyes, startled, and look first at me and then, horrified, at Count Karlstein. What Doctor Cadaverezzi was doing, I had no idea, but Count Karlstein and Snivelwurst were struggling against the press of people, trying to reach the front of the parlor while everyone else was making for the back. I hoped—for I couldn’t see—that Lucy would have the time and the sense to get away.