gods--my place is here.

"But there--there! Look northward across the lake. No, farther to the
west. They are coming from the city of the dead."

"Oh, grandfather! Father--there!" cried the youth, a grandson of the
astrologer of Amon-Ra, to whom he was lending his aid. They were standing
in the observatory of the temple of this god in Tanis, the Pharaoh's
capital in the north of the land of Goshen. He moved away, depriving the
old man of the support of his shoulder, as he continued: "There, there!
Is the sea sweeping over the land? Have the clouds dropped on the earth
to heave to and fro? Oh, grandfather, look yonder! May the Immortals have
pity on us! The under-world is yawning, and the giant serpent Apep has
come forth from the realm of the dead. It is moving past the temple. I
see, I hear it. The great Hebrew's menace is approaching fulfilment. Our
race will be effaced from the earth. The serpent! Its head is turned
toward the southeast. It will devour the sun when it rises in the
morning."

The old man's eyes followed the youth's finger, and he, too, perceived a
huge, dark mass, whose outlines blended with the dusky night, come
surging through the gloom; he, too, heard, with a thrill of terror, the
monster's loud roar.

Both stood straining their eyes and ears to pierce the darkness; but
instead of gazing upward the star-reader's eye was bent upon the city,
the distant sea, and the level plain. Deep silence, yet no peace reigned
above them: the high wind now piled the dark clouds into shapeless
masses, anon severed that grey veil and drove the torn fragments far
asunder. The moon was invisible to mortal eyes, but the clouds were
toying with the bright Southern stars, sometimes hiding them, sometimes
affording a free course for their beams. Sky and earth alike showed a
constant interchange of pallid light and intense darkness. Sometimes the
sheen of the heavenly bodies flashed brightly from sea and bay, the
smooth granite surfaces of the obelisks in the precincts of the temple,
and the gilded copper roof of the airy royal palace, anon sea and river,
the sails in the harbor, the sanctuaries, the streets of the city, and
the palm-grown plain which surrounded it vanished in gloom. Eye and ear
failed to retain the impression of the objects they sought to discern;
for sometimes the silence was so profound that all life, far and near,
seemed hushed and dead, then a shrill shriek of anguish pierced the
silence of the n