lowing roar as the incoming
waters met its fires, but gravely they went on, in turn reciting their
sentences. Phorenice's troops broke down the last resistance, and poured
in a frenzied stream amongst the groves and temples, but still they
quavered never in the ritual.

It had been said that this ceremony is the grandest and the most
impressive of all those connected with our holy religion; and certainly
I found it so; and I speak as one intimate with all the others. Even the
tremendous circumstances which hemmed them in could do nothing to make
these frail old men forget the deference which was due to the highest
order of the Clan.

For myself, I will freely own I was less rapt. I stood there bareheaded
in the heat, a man trying to concentrate himself, and yet torn the while
by a thousand foreign emotions. The awful thing that was happening all
around compelled some of my attention. A continent was in the very act
and article of meeting with complete destruction, and if Zaemon and
the other Priest were strong enough to give their minds wholly up to a
matter parochial to the priesthood, I was not so stoical. And moreover,
I was filled with other anxieties and thoughts concerning Nais. Yet I
managed to preserve a decent show of attention to the ceremony; making
all those responses which were required of me; and trying as well as
might be to preserve in my mind those sentences which were the keys to
power and learning, and not mere phrasings of grandeur and devotion.

But it became clear that if the ceremony of my raising did not soon
arrive at its natural end, it would be cut short presently with
something of suddenness. Phorenice's conquering legions swarmed out
on to the crest of the Mountain, and now carried full knowledge of the
dreadful thing that was come upon the country. They were out of all
control, and ran about like men distracted; but knowing full well that
the Priests would have brought this terrible wreck to pass by virtue of
the powers which were stored within the Ark of the Mysteries, it would
be their natural impulse to pour out a final vengeance upon any of these
same Priests they could come across before it was too late.

It began to come to my mind that if the ceremony did not very shortly
terminate, the further part of the plan would stand very small chance
of completion, and I should come by my death after all by fighting to a
finish, as I had pictured to myself before. My flickering attention sa