Without any distinction of rank or sex, and regardless of all the usual formalities or the degrees of initiation which each had passed through, the worshippers of Serapis crowded towards the sacred niche, till a chain, held up by neokores--[Temple-servants]--at a respectful distance from the mystical spot, checked their advance.

Densely packed and in almost breathless silence, they filled the nave and the colonnades, watching for what might befall.
Presently a dull low chant of men's voices was heard.

This went on for a few minutes, and then a loud pean in honor of the god rang through the temple with an accompaniment of flutes, cymbals, lutes and trumpets.
Karnis had found a place with his wife and son; all three, holding hands, joined enthusiastically in the stirring hymn; and, with them, Porphyrius, who by accident was close to them, swelling the song of the multitude.

All now stood with hands uplifted and eyes fixed in anxious expectancy on the curtain.

The figures and emblems on the hanging were invisible in the gloom--but now-now there was a stir, as of life, in the ponderous folds,--they moved--they began to ripple like streams, brooks, water-falls, recovering motion after long stagnation--the curtain slowly sank, and at length it fell so suddenly that the eye could scarcely note the instant.