Upon These And Their Companions, Who Would Not Forsake The
Halls And Courts Where Once They Dwelt With Splendor, Where Now They
Dwell With Ruin That Attracts The Gaping World.
The moon was risen,
but the west was still full of color and light.
It faded. There was a
pause. Only a bar of dull red, holding a hint of brown, by where the
sun had sunk. And minutes passed - minutes for me full of silent
expectation, while the moonlight grew a little stronger, a few more
silver rays slipped down upon the ruins. I turned toward the east. And
then came that curious crescendo of color and of light which, in
Egypt, succeeds the diminuendo of color and of light that is the
prelude to the pause before the afterglow. Everything seemed to be in
subtle movement, heaving as a breast heaves with the breath; swelling
slightly, as if in an effort to be more, to attract attention, to gain
in significance. Pale things became livid, holding apparently some
under-brightness which partly penetrated its envelope, but a
brightness that was white and almost frightful. Black things seemed to
glow with blackness. The air quivered. Its silence surely thrilled
with sound - with sound that grew ever louder.
In the east I saw an effect. To the west I turned for the cause. The
sunset light was returning. Horus would not permit Tum to reign even
for a few brief moments, and Khuns, the sacred god of the moon, would
be witness of a conflict in that lovely western region of the ocean of
the sky where the bark of the sun had floated away beneath the
mountain rim upon the red-and-orange tides.
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