“What was that, Arignotus? asked Eucrates. “It was uninhabitable,” he replied, “for a long time because of terrors; whenever anyone took up his abode in it, he fled in panic at once, chased out by a fearful, terrifying phantom. So it was falling in and the roof was tumbling down, and there was nobody at all who had the courage to enter it.
When I heard all this, I took my books—I have a great number of Egyptian works about such matters— and went into the house at bed-time, although my host tried to'dissuade me and all but held me when he learned where I was going—into misfortune with . my eyes open, he thought. But taking a lamp I went in alone; in the largest room I put down the light and was reading peacefully, seated on the ground, when the spirit appeared, thinking that he was setting upon a man of the common sort and expecting to affright me as he had the others; he was squalid and long-haired and blacker than the dark. Standing over me, he made attempts upon me, attacking me from all sides to see if he could get the best of me anywhere, and turning now into a dog, now into a bull or a lion. But I brought into play my most frightful imprecation, speaking the’ Egyptian language, pent him up in a certain corner of a dark room, and laid him. Then, having observed where he went down, I slept for the rest of the night.
