hadows; strange deer, who staggered to the garden plots and lay
there heaving their lives out; mighty boars, who came from the river
marshes and silently nozzled a place amongst their enemies to die in!
Even the wolves came off the hills, and, with bloodshot eyes and
tongues that dripped foam, flung themselves down in my shadow.

All along the tall stockades apes sat sad and listless, and on the
roof-ridges storks were dying. Over the branches of the trees, whose
leaves were as thin as though we had had a six months' drought, the
toucans and Martian parrots hung limp and fashionless like gaudy rags,
and in the courtyard ground the corn-rats came up from their tunnels in
the scorching earth to die, squeaking in scores along under the walls.

Our common sorrow made us as sociable as though I were Noah, and
Ar-hap's palace mound another Ararat. Hour after hour I sat amongst
all these lesser beasts in the hot darkness, waiting for the end.
Every now and then the heavy clouds parted, changing the gloom to
sudden fiery daylight as the great red eye in the west looked upon us
through the crevice, and, taking advantage of those gleams, I would
reel across to where, under a spout leading from a dried rivulet, I had
placed a cup to collect the slow and tepid drops that were all now
coming down the reed for Heru. And as I went back each time with that
sickly spoonful at the bottom of the vessel all the dying beasts lifted
their heads and watched--the thirsty wolves shambling after me; the
boars half sat up and grunted plaintively; the panthers, too weak to
rise, beat the dusty ground with their tails; and from the portico the
blue storks, with trailing wings, croaked husky greeting.

But slower and slower came the dripping water, more and more
intolerable the heat. At last I could stand it no longer. What
purpose did it serve to lay gasping like this, dying cruelly without a
hope of rescue, when a shorter way was at my side? I had not drank for
a day and a half. I was past active reviling; my head swam; my reason
was clouded. No! I would not stand it any longer. Once more I would
take Heru and poor Si the cup that was but a mockery after all, then
fix my sword into the ground and try what next the Fates had in store
for me.

So once again the leathern mug was fetched and carried through the
prostrate guards to where the Martian girl lay, like a withered flower,
upon her couch. Once again I moistened those fair lips, whi