Turning from the altar, he took a small mallet and struck a gong whose thin note shivered and hissed, with a rustling, lingering vibration, chilling, sighing, not full-throated as bronze should be. And from panels on either flank of the altar emerged those same hooded, sheeted figures that had passed me a short time ago, filed now to their places and knelt before the shrine, a vermilion crescent of demonaltors bowing before their chief and their god.

One of the number, after his salaam, arose and advanced to the altar steps, leaned over the brazen railing, and with a stick of rouge marked on the side of the unconscious girl, then a mark on her breast, and then on her forehead a mark. At the same time, coming from the right, just beyond my angle of vision, were four who pushed forward on rollers a massive stone trough, a trough over whose sides slopped some of the liquid it contained. Trough? No trough at all, but a sarcophagus, chiseled with Egyptian hieroglyphics! And is if by symmetry, there came from the left four others, each pair of whom bore a mummy case. These cases were placed on either side of the altar, standing upright. One, the mummy case of a man; the other, of a woman. This I knew from their sizes, and from the gilded masks which depicted the features of the deceased.

The case of the man seemed heavy. But those who carried the case of the woman bore it as though it were empty. And I wondered if indeed that could be the case we sought, Pierre and I.

The hooded figures, after putting their burdens into position, resumed their places in the crescent of devotees, leaving the Marquis alone on the altar steps, facing the shrine.

Well, and at least I need fear no attack; for those who had passed me at the gate had but doubled back and waited behind the scenes for their signal to reappear. It had all been stage-setting. And it all apparently amounted to nothing more than an initiation of the girl into the secret order of demonaltry. I relaxed and let the Luger sink into its holster.

And then I noticed what under normal circumstances I would have noted immediately; the solution of that which made both the marquis and the girl seem left-handed, and that which made the voices seem to come from my right, instead of from directly in front of me. I was looking into a mirror, into one, or three, or some odd number of mirrors which caused a reversal of left and right. Had I not shrunk back into my corner, against the doorjamb, I would have noted that those who filed past me had not come directly toward me, but rather from one side. I could now distinguish my image before me, very faint, almost imperceptible, yet there, nevertheless.