Between Snow and Fire — page 219: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

| 3 WALK 1 IN SHADOW? 211 The sun sinks to the western ridge—the voices of ani- mal and insect life swell in harmonious chorus, louder and louder, in that last hour of parting day. His golden beams, now horizontal, sweep the broad and rolling plains in a sea of fire, throwing out the rounded spurs of the Kabousie Hills into so many waves of vivid green. Then the flaming chariot of day is gone. And in the unearthly hush of the roseate afterglow, that pale, heart-broken mourner wends her way home. Home! An empty house, where the echo of a footfall sounds ghostly and startling ; an abode peopled with reminis- cences of the dead—meet companionship for a dead and empty heart. Never so dead—never so empty—as this evening. Never since the first moment of receiving the awful news has she felt so utterly crushed, so soul-weary as here to-night. “ How was it all toend?” had been their oft-spoken thought —here on this very spot. The answer had come now. Death had supplied it. But—how was /¢fzs to end? The glories of departing day were breaking forth into ever varying splendours. ‘The spurs of the mountain range, now green, now gold, assumed a rich purple against the flaming red of the sky. The deepening afterglow flushed and quivered, as the scintillating eyes of heaven sprang forth into the arching vault—not one by one, but in whole groups. Then the pearly shades of twilight and the cool, ; moist fragrance of the falling night. Why was the earth so wondrously lovely—why should eyes rest upon such semi-divine splendour while the heart was. aching and bursting ? was the unspoken cry that went up from that heart-weary mourner standing there alone gaz- ing forth into the depths of the star-gemmed night. Stay! What is that tongue of flame suddenly leaping | forth into the darkness? Another and another—and lo! by ‘ magic, from a score of lofty heights, red fires are gushing upward into the black and velvety gloom, and as the | ominous beacons gather in flaming volume roaring up to a g great height, the lurid glow of the dark firmament is re- flected dully upon the slumbering plains. A weird, far-away chorus floats upon the stillness, now rising, now falling. Its boding import there is no mistak- ing. It is the gathering cry of a barbarian host. The Gaika location is up in arms. ~Heavens! What is to 7 . Gomilchbooks.com