And Si'Wren died.
And these were all the years of her life, and she was but seventeen when she died. I, Ibi, have made proper record of it and shall now seal all away in a great stone jar, for a strange and unheard-of thing happens even as I write these words. Water, falling from the sky for almost a solid week! This miraculous thing have I beheld with mine own rheumy and tired old eyes that thought they had seen all that there was to see, and still it falls! The gods harken not unto the lamentations and sacrifices of men. The rivers, the lakes, and the very sea itself, all are tumultuous, swollen, and rising. Great fear has fallen upon all flesh, upon every man, woman, and child, and upon every beast, and fowl of the air, and lowly creeping thing alike. For the space of six days and six nights has this cursed divine waterfall descended from the heavens upon all the formerly dry land.
I go again to pray. Ye gods, why do ye not listen? Perhaps the great Invisible God of Si'Wren, the Holy One Who is like water, will hearken unto my prayers if the other gods will not, and surely tomorrow, on the seventh day, He will rest.
* * *
The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come. - Isaiah 57.
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's Si'Wren of the Patriarchs, by Roland Cheney