As he spoke the ropes of the ship were loosened, the wind caught her
crimson sails, and she departed into the night, one blood-red spot
against its blackness.

The multitude watched until they could see her no longer. Then they
flamed up with mingled joy and rage. They laughed madly. They cursed him
who had departed.

"We live, we live, we live!" they cried. "Murgh is gone! Murgh is gone!
Kill his priests! Make sacrifice of his Shadows. Murgh is gone bearing
the curse of the East into the bosom of the West. Look, it follows him!"
and they pointed to a cloud of smoke or vapour, in which terrible shapes
seemed to move dimly, that trailed after the departing, red-sailed ship.

The black priests and the white priests heard. Without struggle, without
complaint, as though they were but taking part in some set ceremony,
they kneeled down in lines upon the snow. Naked from the waist up,
executioners with great swords appeared. They advanced upon the kneeling
lines without haste, without wrath, and, letting fall the heavy swords
upon the patient, outstretched necks, did their grim office till all
were dead. Then they turned to find her of the flowers who had danced
before, and her of the tattered weeds who had followed after, purposing
to cast them to the funeral flames. But these were gone, though none
had seen them go. Only out of the gathering darkness from some temple or
pagoda-top a voice spoke like a moaning wind.

"Fools," wailed the voice, "still with you is Murgh, the second Thing
created; Murgh, who was made to be man's minister. Murgh the Messenger
shall reappear from beyond the setting sun. Ye cannot kill, ye cannot
spare. Those priests you seemed to slay he had summoned to be his