her," answered Menzi. "I do not think that my
spells have worked well, for something stronger than I am has spoiled
them. Mayhap it is you, Teacher, or the _Great-Great_ whom you serve in
your own fashion. I do not know, but I pray you to remember that long
since on the smoke of my magic fire I showed you what would come about
if you re-built the Heaven-house upon this place. But you said I was a
cheat and would not be warned. Therefore things have gone as the Spirits
appointed that they should go. Your Christians made me gifts and asked
me to bring rain and it has come in plenty, and with it other things,
more than you asked. Look," and he pointed downwards.

The church was falling. Its last foundations were washed away. Down it
came with a mighty crash, to melt into the flood that presently filled
the place where it had been. Its collapse and the noise of it were
terrible, so terrible that the Christians gathered on the rock uttered
a heart-rending wail of woe. The spire, being built upon a deeper bed
because of its weight, stood longer than the rest of the fabric, but
presently it went also.

Thrice it seemed to bow towards them, then it fell like a child's
castle. Reckoning its height with his eye, Thomas saw that it could not
reach them where they stood, and so did the others, therefore no one
stirred. As the tower collapsed the clock sounded the first stroke of
the hour, then suddenly became silent for ever and vanished beneath the
waters, a mass of broken metal.

But the bell on which it had struck was hurled forward by the sway of
the fall like a stone from a sling. It sped towards them through the
air, a great dark object. Men ran this way and that, so that it fell
upon the rock where none stood. It fell; it flew to pieces like an
exploding shell, and its fragments hurtled over them with a screaming
sound. Yet as it chanced the tongue or clapper of it took a lower
course, perhaps because it was heavier, and rushing onwards like a
thrown spear, struck Menzi full upon the chest, crushing in his breast
bone.

They bore him up to the mission-house, since there was nowhere else
whither he could be taken. Here they laid him on a bed, leaving the
woman, Ivana, to watch him, for they had no skill to deal with such
injuries as his. Indeed, they thought him dead.

For a long while Menzi lay senseless, but after night had fallen his
mind returned to him and he bade Ivana bring Tabitha to him, Tabitha and
no one else