midnight
exclaimed the gate-keeper , catching up the astrologer 's words , and shrugging his shoulders so high that his head disappeared between them . `` It is a night of horror , and some great disaster threatens us for certain . Fifteen years have I been in my place , and I never saw such a night but once before , and the very next day the soldiers of Antiochus , the Syrian king , came and plundered our treasury . Aye -- and to-night is worse even than that was ; when the dog-star first rose a horrible shape with a lion 's mane flew across the desert , but it was not till midnight that the fearful uproar began , and even you shuddered when it broke out in the Apis-cave . Frightful things must be coming on us when the sacred bulls rise from the dead and butt and storm at the door with their horns to break it open . Many a time have I seen the souls of the dead fluttering and wheeling and screaming above the old mausoleums , and rock - tombs of ancient times . Sometimes they would soar up in the air in the form of hawks with men 's heads , or like ibises with a slow lagging flight , and sometimes sweep over the desert like gray shapeless shadows , or glide across the sand like snakes ; or they would creep out of the tombs , howling like hungry dogs .