Angels and Women (1924)

210 ANGELS AND WOMEN
waters still rose rapidly along the hill-sides.
We breathed more freely and our father
Noah looked after the frightened beasts,
from whom we had heard occasional moans
of pain and fear. At length, with halfaverted
gaze, we ventured to again approach
the window. O vision of gloom! The
heavens were gathering blackness and heavy
masses of cloud were driving across the
murky sky. The lurid moon was drowned
in a black, watery mist; its feeble sickly light
revealed the dim outlines of the horror by
which we were surrounded. We were drifting
near a mountain of unfamiliar outline,
whose top was crowded with living beings
in every attitude and aspect of despair.
Women and children there were none.
Their feeble natures had yielded long before
this terrible consummation. But men and
Darvands, animals, birds, serpents, were all
crowded in indistinguishable confusion.
Some sat in motionless apathy, with despairing
faces upturned to the pall-like sky.