While these flickered and spluttered with more and more irregularity, and from the duller-growing circle of fire around the Brahma, vast fingers of flame shot forth and swept hither and thither throughout the whole of space, as if the god with a hundred giant arms were seeking the invisible foe who was besetting him;
While, owing to the disturbed movements of the heavenly bodies, whirlwinds arose which rent whole systems of stars out the kingdom of the Brahma, and into their places rushed a wave of darkness from the mighty void, as the sea dashes in where the ship has sprung a leak;
And while, at other points, systems crashed into one another and a universal conflagration broke out, with explosions which hurled sheaves of shooting-stars down into the fiery throat of the Brahma;
While the thunder of the harmonies as they broke down and crashed into one another—the death-rattle of the music of the spheres—rolled and re-echoed with ever-increasing fearfulness from one quarter of the heavens to another—
Vasitthi, untroubled, and speaking in measured language, related to Kamanita her last earthly experiences.
