inevitable doom.

Ayesha let fall her rein. She tossed her arms, waving the torn, white
veil as though it were a signal cast to heaven.

Instantly from the churning jaws of the unholy night above belched a
blaze of answering flame, that also wavered like a rent and shaken veil
in the grasp of a black hand of cloud.

Then did Ayesha roll the thunder of her might upon the Children of
Kaloon. Then she called, and the Terror came, such as men had never seen
and perchance never more will see. Awful bursts of wind tore past us,
lifting the very stones and soil before them, and with the wind went
hail and level, hissing rain, made visible by the arrows of perpetual
lightnings that leapt downwards from the sky and upwards from the earth.

It was as she had warned me. It was as though hell had broken loose upon
the world, yet through that hell we rushed on unharmed. For always these
furies passed before us. No arrow flew, no javelin was stained. The
jagged hail was a herald of our coming; the levens that smote and
stabbed were our sword and spear, while ever the hurricane roared and
screamed with a million separate voices which blended to one yell of
sound, hideous and indescribable.

As for the hosts about us they melted and were gone.

Now the darkness was dense, like to that of thickest night; yet in the
fierce flares of the lightnings I saw them run this way and that, and
amidst the volleying, elemental voices I heard their shouts of horror
and of agony. I saw horses and riders roll confused upon the ground;
like storm-drifted leaves I saw their footmen piled in high and whirling
heaps, while the brands of heaven struck and struck them till they sank
together and grew still.

I saw the groves of trees bend, shrivel up and vanish. I saw the high
walls of Kaloon blown in and flee away, while the houses within the
walls took fire, to go out beneath the torrents of the driving rain,
and again take fire. I saw blackness sweep over us with great wings, and
when I looked, lo! those wide wings were flame, floods of pulsing flame
that flew upon the tormented air.

Blackness, utter blackness; turmoil, doom, dismay! Beneath me the
labouring horse; at my side the steady crest of light which sat on
Ayesha's brow, and through the tumult a clear, exultant voice that
sang--"I promised thee wild weather! Now, Holly, dost thou believe that
I can loose the prisoned Powers of the world?"

Lo! all was past and gone, and above us shone