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. The afterglow was like an exquisite
spasm, is always like an exquisite spasm, a beautiful, almost desperate
effort ending in the quiet darkness of defeat. And through that
spasmodic effort a world lived for some minutes with a life that seemed
unreal, startling, magical. Color returned to the sky--color ethereal,
trembling as if it knew it ought not to return. Yet it stayed for a
while and even glowed, though it looked always strangely purified,