gainst the Sacred Mountain itself, grew nearer and more loud. But the
old man had his say.

Phorenice gave orders to her guards for his killing; yes, tried even to
rise from the litter and do the work herself; but Zaemon held the Symbol
to his front, and its power in that supreme moment mastered all the arts
that could be brought against it. The majesty of the most High Gods
was vindicated, and that splendid Empress knew it and lay back sullenly
amongst the cushions of her litter, a beaten woman.

Only one person in that rigid knot of people found power to leave the
rest, and that was Ylga. She came out to the side of the Ark, and leaned
up, and cried me a farewell through the gathering roar of the flood.

"I would I might save you and take you with us," I said.

"As for that," she said, with a gesture, "I would not come if you asked
me. I am not a woman that will take anything less than all. But I shall
meet what comes presently with the memory that you will have me always
somewhere in your recollection. I know somewhat of men, even men of your
stamp, Deucalion, and you will never forget that you came very near to
loving me once."

I think, too, she said something further, concerning Nais, but the
bellowing rush of the waters drowned all other words. A great mist made
from the stream sent up by the swamped burning mountains stopped all
accurate view, though the blaze from the fires lit it like gold. But
I had a last sight of a horde of soldiery rushing up the slopes of the
Mountain, with a scum of surge billowing at their heels, and licking
many of them back in its clutch. And then my eye fell on old Zaemon
waving to me with the Symbol to shut down the door in the roof of the
Ark.

I obeyed his last command, and went down the stair, and closed all
ingress behind me. There were bolts placed ready, and I shot these into
their sockets, and there were Nais and I alone, and cut off from all the
rest of our world that remained.

I went to the place where she lay, and put my arms tightly around her.
Without, we heard men beating desperately on the Ark with their weapons,
and some even climbed by the battens to the top and wrenched to try and
move the door from its fastenings. The end was coming very nearly to
them now, and the great crowd of them were mad with terror.

I would have given much to have known how Phorenice fared in that final
tumult, and how she faced it. I could see her, with her lovely face, and
her w