Koroby peered out. "A gnau?" she asked.
"I don't know," the bearer volunteered.
Koroby lifted a hand. "Stop the litter," she said.
The conveyance halted. Koroby leaning out, the men peering around them, they listened. One of the bearers shouted at the musicians; the music ceased. There was nothing to be heard except the whisper of the breeze in the grass.
Then the girl heard it—a shrill, distant whine, dying away, then growing louder—and louder—it seemed to be approaching—from the sky—
All the faces were lifted up now, worriedly. The whine grew louder—Koroby's hands clenched nervously on the wreaths at her throat—
Then, far ahead, a series of bright flashes, like the lightning of the dust-storms, but brilliantly green. A silence, then staccatto reports, certainly not thunder—unlike any sound that Koroby had ever heard.
There was a babble of voices as the musicians crowded together, asking what had it been, and where—just exactly—could one suppose it had happened, that thunder—was it going to storm!
They waited, but nothing further happened—there were no more stabs of green light nor detonations. The bearers stooped to lift the litter's poles to their shoulders. "Shall we go on?" one of them asked Koroby.