The lights of the city were brokenly extinguished and the
pitiless hail of ruin continued with increasing fierceness.
"It was an awful, glorious scene. The vault of the sky emptying itself
in an avalanche of flame, while from within the wide stream of
projectiles, collisions caused by some accident of deflection originated
interior spots of sudden blazing light. The irregular and separated
shocks of sound from the falling city now ran together in a continuous
roar of dislocated and broken walls, towers, parapets and citadels.
Coruscations sprang out from the yet heated masses, accumulating on the
ground, as they became incessantly struck by new accessions. The ground
trembled with ceaseless fulminations and impingement, the atmosphere
seemed saturated with sulphurous odors, and the panoramic flow of
fluctuating splendor shed a day-like brightness upon the upturned faces
of the startled and stupefied multitude.
"All night long the invasion continued. The area of destruction, exactly
as the astronomers had defined it, was confined to the long elliptical
basin in which Scandor lay. Beyond it hardly a branch upon the trees was
broken, though occasional erratic bombs shot over us and fell miles away
along the borders of the canals.
"As the morning dawned, the shower discontinued, a few laggards fell in
scattering confusion over the prostrate city, and the sun climbing the
eastern sky sent its peaceful reassuring light upon a cairn-like heap of
desolation.
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