invisibly he has crept up to the woman, and with that knife of Mechanical
Invention he has cut the band that bound the burden to her back. The
Inevitable Necessity it broken. She might rise now."

And I saw that she still lay motionless on the sand, with her eyes open and
her neck stretched out. And she seemed to look for something on the far-
off border of the desert that never came. And I wondered if she were awake
or asleep. And as I looked her body quivered, and a light came into her
eyes, like when a sunbeam breaks into a dark room.

I said, "What is it?"

He whispered "Hush! the thought has come to her, 'Might I not rise?'"

And I looked. And she raised her head from the sand, and I saw the dent
where her neck had lain so long. And she looked at the earth, and she
looked at the sky, and she looked at him who stood by her: but he looked
out across the desert.

And I saw her body quiver; and she pressed her front knees to the earth,
and veins stood out; and I cried; "She is going to rise!"

But only her sides heaved, and she lay still where she was.

But her head she held up; she did not lay it down again. And he beside me
said, "She is very weak. See, her legs have been crushed under her so
long."

And I saw the creature struggle: and the drops stood out on her.