Then she went and sat down on the divan by Khalid’s side, and, taking his hand in hers, bent over him and kissed him on the lips, saying—
“Now we must wait for life or death together!”
And so they waited—waited while the ages-old snow and ice melted from the bare black rocks under the fierce breath of the fire-storm; while the ocean of flame seethed and roared and eddied about them, licking up the seas and melted snows and fighting with them as fire and water have fought since the world began; while the foundations of the Southern Pole quivered and rocked beneath their feet, and the walls of their refuge quaked and cracked with the throes of the writhing earth, and cosmos was dissolved into chaos once more.
EPILOGUE.
“VENGEANCE IS MINE.”
“THE temperature has been normal now for three hours. Don’t you think we may venture to raise the sluice-gate?”