However that may be, events shaped a different course for us, perhaps because the Abati got wind of our intention and had no stomach for a pitched battle with desperate men.  As it happened, this night from sunset on to moonrise was one of a darkness so remarkable that it was impossible to see anything even a foot away, also a wind blowing from the east made sounds very inaudible.  Only a few of our men were on guard, since it was necessary that they should be rested till it was time for them to prepare for their great effort.  Also, we had little fear of any direct attack.

About eight o’clock, however, my son Roderick, one of the watch stationed in the gateway towers, who was gifted with very quick ears, reported that he thought he heard people moving on the farther side of the massive wooden doors beyond the moat.  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.  Sound the alarm.  Sound the alarm!”

It was done, and presently the great range of buildings began to hum like a hive of bees.  The soldiers still half asleep, rushed hither and thither shouting.  The officers also, developing the characteristic excitement of the Abati race in this hour of panic, yelled and screamed at them, beating them with their fists and swords till some kind of control was established.

Then attempts were made to extinguish the flames, which by this time had got hold in half-a-dozen places.  From the beginning the effort was absolutely hopeless.  It is true that there was plenty of water in the moat, which was fed by a perennial stream that flowed down the face of the precipice behind; but pumping engines of any sort were quite unknown to the Abati, who, if a building took fire, just let it burn, contenting themselves with safeguarding those in its neighbourhood.  Moreover, even in the palace, such articles as pails, jugs, or other vessels were comparatively few and far between.