It was a very strange sunset. For days the heat had been great, but now
it was fearful, also a marvellous stillness reigned in heaven and earth.
Nothing seemed to stir in all the city, no dog barked, no child cried,
no leaf quivered upon the tall palms; it might have been a city of the
dead.
Dense clouds arose upon the sky, and moved, though no wind blew. Where
the sun's rays touched them they were gold and red and purple, but above
these of an inky blackness. They took strange shapes those clouds, and
marshalled themselves like a host gathering for battle. There were the
commanders moving quickly to and fro; there the chariots, and there the
sullen lines of footmen with their gleaming spears. Now one cloud higher
than the rest seemed to shoot itself across the arch of heaven, and its
fashion was that of a woman with outspread hair of gold. Her feet stood
upon the sun, her body bent itself athwart the sky, and upon the far
horizon in the east her hands held the pale globe of the rising moon.
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