s behind me, and turning in defiant
expectation to the new to come, I rose, saw the red gleam of my sword
jutting like a fiery spear from the cracking soil where I had planted
it, then looked once more at the drop and glanced for the last time at
the sullen red terror on the hill.

Were my eyes dazed, my senses reeling? I said a space ago that the
meteor stood exactly on the mountain-top and if it sunk a hair's
breadth I should note it; and now, why, there WAS a flaw in its lower
margin, a flattening of the great red foot that before had been round
and perfect. I turned my smarting eyes away a minute,--saw the seventh
drop fall with a melodious tingle into the cup, then back again,--there
was no mistake--the truant fire was a fraction less, it had shrunk a
fraction behind the hill even since I looked, and thereon all my life
ran back into its channels, the world danced before me, and "Heru!" I
shouted hoarsely, reeling back towards the palace, "Heru, 'tis well;
the worst is past!"

But the little princess was unconscious, and at her feet was poor Si,
quite dead, still reclining with her head in her hands just as I had
left her. Then my own senses gave out, and dropping down by them I
remembered no more.

I must have lain there an hour or two, for when consciousness came
again it was night--black, cool, profound night, with an inky sky low
down upon the tree-tops, and out of it such a glorious deluge of rain
descending swiftly and silently as filled my veins even to listen to.
Eagerly I shuffled away to the porch steps, down them into the swimming
courtyard, and ankle-deep in the glorious flood, set to work lapping
furiously at the first puddle, drinking with gasps of pleasure, gasping
and drinking again, feeling my body filling out like the thirsty
steaming earth below me. Then, as I still drank insatiably, there came
a gleam of lightning out of the gloom overhead, a brilliant yellow
blaze, and by it I saw a few yards away a panther drinking at the same
pool as myself, his gleaming eyes low down like mine upon the water,
and by his side two apes, the black water running in at their gaping
mouths, while out beyond were more pools, more drinking animals.
Everything was drinking. I saw their outlined forms, the gleam shining
on wet skins as though they were cut out in silver against the
darkness, each beast steaming like a volcano as the Heaven-sent rain
smoked from his fevered hide, all drinking for their lives, hee