These walls, washed for nearly four years by the inundation, have already taken on at the base that sad blackish colour which may be seen on the old Venetian palaces.
Halt and silence.

It is dark and cold.

The oars no longer move, and we hear only the sighing of the wind and the lapping of the water against the columns and the bas-reliefs--and then suddenly there comes the noise of a heavy body falling, followed by endless eddies.

A great carved stone has plunged, at its due hour, to rejoin in the black chaos below its fellows that have already disappeared, to rejoin the submerged temples and old Coptic churches, and the town of the first Christian centuries--all that was once the Isle of Philae, the "pearl of Egypt," one of the marvels of the world.
The darkness is now extreme and we can see no longer.

Let us go and shelter, no matter where, to await the moon.