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 bellowing: "You git all that sand shovelled away before the Master comes!"

After an eternity of labour, with the awful spaces of waste land as sandy as ever, the Nubians all shouted together in a great voice: "He's coming! He's coming!" And the slaves cast themselves upon the ground, writhing as the silhouette of an advancing caravan appeared upon the horizon.

It came on, swift as light, thunderous with roaring drums and clanging cymbals; it was like a rolling purple cloud shot with scarlet and with flashing brass and silvered steel; the earth shook under the wild hordes of horsemen in flying red cloaks, camel-riders tossing bright-headed spears in the air, and black footmen in jackals' skins, running and leaping. But before them all charged a gigantic white elephant galloping like a horse. Upon his back, instead of a howdah he bore a great green globe, marked properly with the seven seas and the five continents; and upon the globe rode a stalwart, broad-faced man, standing at his ease. He was wrapped in a leopard's skin; but from the head of the leopard long human hair waved on the wind; and the man stood with his right arm extended, bearing a figure upon the palm of his hand, as antique statues sometimes bore a statuette.