Afar away I saw the gleaming serpent still at play—still writhing along, still obliterating the few score scattered fugitives that some way, somehow, had slipped by the Destroying Things.
We halted. For one long moment Norhala looked upon the drooping body of him upon whom she had let fall this mighty vengeance.
Then the metal arm that held Cherkis whirled. Thrown from it, the cloaked form flew like a great blue bat. It fell upon the flattened mound that had once been the proud crown of his city. A blue blot upon desolation the broken body of Cherkis lay.
A black speck appeared high in the sky; grew fast—the lammergeier.
“I have left carrion for you—after all!” cried Norhala.
With an ebon swirling of wings the vulture dropped beside the blue heap—thrust in it its beak.
CHAPTER XXVII. “THE DRUMS OF DESTINY”
Slowly we descended that mount of desolation; lingeringly, as though the brooding eyes of Norhala were not yet sated with destruction. Of human life, of green life, of life of any kind there was none.
Man and tree, woman and flower, babe and bud, palace, temple and home—Norhala had stamped flat. She had crushed them within the rock—even as she had promised.