moon peeped, pale and shrouded, out of a russet halo, and ghostly
twilight reigned in the streets, still heated by the baked walls of the
houses.

To the west, over the desert, a dull sulphurous yellow streaked the black
clouds, and from time to time the sultry air was rent by a blinding flash
sent across the firmament from the north. There was a hot, sluggish wind
blowing from the southwest, which drove the sand across the lake into the
streets; the fine grit stung: and burnt the face of the wanderer who
hurried on with half-closed eyes and tightly-shut lips. A deep
oppression seemed to have fallen on nature and on man; the sudden gusts
of the heated breeze, the arrow-like shafts of lightning, the weird
shapes and colors of the clouds, all combined to give a sinister, baleful
and portentous aspect to this night, as though skies and waters, earth
and air were brooding over some tremendous catastrophe.

Gorgo had thrown a veil and handkerchief round her head and followed the
priest with an aching brow and throbbing heart. When she heard a step
behind her she started-for it might be Constantine following her up; when
a gust of wind flung the stinging sand in her face, or the storm-flash
threw a lurid light on the sky, her heart stood still, for was not this
the prelude to the final crash.

She was familiar with the way they were going, but its length seemed to
have stretched tenfold. At last, however, they reached their
destination. She gave the pass-word at the gate of her father's timber-
yard and exchanged the signs agreed upon; in a few minutes she had made
her way through the piles of beams and planks that screened the entrance
to the aqueduct--a slave who knew her leading the way with a light--and
she and her companion entered the underground passage.