Accordingly some of us went to listen, but could distinguish nothing, and concluded therefore that he was mistaken.

So we retired to our posts and waited patiently for the moon to rise.

But as it chanced no moon rose, or rather we could not see her, because the sky was completely covered by thick banks of thunder-clouds presaging the break-up of a period of great heat.

These, as the wind had now died down, remained quite stationary upon the face of the sky, blotting out all light.
Perhaps another hour had passed when, chancing to look behind me, I saw what I thought was a meteor falling from the crest of the cliff against which the palace was built, that cliff whither the head of the idol Harmac had been carried by the force of the explosion.
"Look at that shooting star," I said to Oliver, who was at my side.
"It is not a shooting star, it is fire," he replied in a startled voice, and, as he spoke, other streaks of light, scores of them, began to rain down from the brow of the cliff and land upon the wooden buildings to the rear of the palace that were dry as tinder with the drought, and, what was worse, upon the gilded timber domes of the roof.
"Don't you understand the game ?" he went on.

"They have tied firebrands to arrows and spears to burn us out.