And the voice answered:—
“Be thou a cloud!”
Straightway a cloud he became. He floated before the face of the sun, and hid the earth from it.
Then day after day the cloud dropped rain. The rivers overflowed, and the rice-fields were covered with water. Towns were swept away. Only the great rocks on the mountain-side stood unmoved midst the flood.
The cloud looked at them in wonder, then he sighed:—
“Ah me! Ah me!
If Hofus only a rock might be!”
And the voice answered:—
“Be thou a rock!”
Straightway a rock he became. Proudly he stood. The sun could not burn him and the rain could not move him.
“Now, at last,” he said, “no one is mightier than I.”