" I received a telegram from a New York art dealer named Atherton. I agreed to act as purchasing agent for Mr. Roger Carlyle of the United States, who was represented to me as a wealthy American. On written instructions from Mr. Atherton, I purchased certain artifacts from Faraz Najir, an antiquities dealer, and illegally shipped them out of Egypt to Mr. Carlyle in New York. I know the artifacts were ancient, but nothing more.
 

"When the Carlyle Expedition came to Egypt, I arranged for all their equipment and permits.  Sir Aubrey hired a native named Tewfik as chief guide.  I knew that this fellow Tewfik had a bad reputation – he was involved in underworld activities – but Sir Aubrey ignored my warning.
 

“After a week of revelry in Cairo (during which Mr. Carlyle was drunk more often than sober), they began excavations at Giza, then shifted to Saqqara, and then to Dhashur.  There was no plan or organization that I could discern.  All decisions were made by Sir Aubrey, but he seemed to take his orders from, of all people, Miss Master’s black maid-servant!  Jack Brady was the only level-headed one of the lot.
 

"One day at Dhashur, Brady came to me and told me that Carlyle, Miss Masters, Sir Aubrey, Dr. Huston, the maid-servant, and Tewfik had entered the Bent Pyramid and then vanished. Brady was excited and suspected foul play. The diggers fled the site and work came to a stand-still.  We did not know what to do, so we drank.  And drank.  And drank some more.
 

"The next morning, Carlyle and the others reappeared. They were excited by some tremendous find, but what it was, they would not say, nor did I learn, for Sir Aubrey was a fiend for secrecy. All of them had changed in some inexplicable way, and a way not for the better; I did not ask further.
 

"That evening, an old Egyptian woman from El Wasta named Nyiti visited me. She said that her son Unba had been one of the diggers. She said the diggers had fled because Carlyle and the others had consorted with an ancient evil, the Messenger of the Black Wind. She said that she could recognize that the souls of all the Europeans but Brady and myself were lost. If I wanted proof, I should go to the Collapsed Pyramid at Meidum at the time when the moon is slimmest.  Three weeks later, on the night before the dark of the moon, God help me, I went!
 

“I took one of the trucks, pretending to leave for a night in the pleasure quarter of Cairo.  But instead I drove the twenty miles south to Meidum, and secreted myself where she advised. There in the midnight blackness I saw Carlyle and the others disport themselves in obscene rituals with a hundred madmen. The very desert came alive, crawling and undulating toward the ruins of the pyramid. To my horror, the stone ruins themselves became a skeletal, bulging-eyed thing!
 

"Strange creatures emerged from the sands, grasped the dancing celebrants, and, one by one, tore out their throats, killing all until only the Europeans, Tewfik, and one other robed celebrant remained.
 

"Something more loomed out of the sand, the size of an elephant but with five separate shaggy heads. Then I realized what it was - but it is madness to speak it! I saw it rise and in a great ravening swallow as one all the torn corpses and their hideous murderers, leaving alive only seven people amidst the stench of the blood-soaked sands.
 

"I fainted. When I recovered, I wandered into the desert. There further horrors awaited me. Stumbling up a rise before dawn, I saw beyond hundreds of dark sphinxes, rank upon rank drawn up and waiting for the hour of madness when they will spring to devour the world! I fainted again, and this time I left the world for many months.
 

"Unba and Nyiti found me; for two years they cared for me -  a man mindless and without hope.   Eventually I returned to the world and made my way back to Cairo. But I began to dream! Only hashish helps now, or opium if it can be found. My supply is low again, and my life is intolerable without it. Will you good people please contribute?  Only strong drugs keep me from insanity.  Everything, everything is lost.  There is no hope for any of us.  Everywhere they wait.  Perhaps you will join me in a pipe?