Thrice they bowed thus, without
a wind, and then were straight and still once more. Next the clouds
rushed together as though a black pall had been drawn across the
heavens, only in the west the half-hidden globe of the sun shone on
through an opening in them, shone like a great and furious eye. By slow
degrees it sank, till nothing was left save a little rim of fire. All
the hall grew dark, and through the darkness Neter-Tua could be heard
calling on the name of Amen.
"Ra is dead!" shouted a voice. "Have done, Bastard, Ra is dead!"
"Aye," she answered in a cold triumphant cry, "but Amen lives. Behold
his sword, ye Traitors!"
As the words left her lips the heavens were cleft in twain by a fearful
flash of lightning, and in it the people saw that once again the
palm-trees bowed themselves, this time almost to the ground. Then with a
roar the winds were loosed, and beneath their feet the solid earth began
to heave as though a giant lifted it. Thrice it heaved like a heaving
wave, and the third time through the thick cover of the darkness there
rose a shriek of terror and of agony followed by the awful crash of
falling stones.
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