The Doomshape, called the Destroyer, in Egypt, was seen in all the lands, thereabouts. In color, it was bright and fiery, in appearance changing and unstable. It twisted about itself like a coil … It was not a great comet or a loosened star, being more like a fiery body of flame. Its movements on high were slow, below it swirled in the manner of smoke and it remained close to the sun, whose face it hid. There was a bloody redness about it, which changed as it passed along its course. It caused death and destruction in its rising and setting. It swept the Earth with grey cinder rain and caused many plagues, hunger and other evils. It bit the skin of men and beast until they became mottled with sores. The East was troubled and shook, the hills and mountains moved and rocked. … The Doomshape thundered sharply in the Heavens and shot out bright lightings. Then a voice like ten thousand trumpets was heard … The whole of the land moved and mountains melted. The sky itself roared like ten thousand lions in agony, and bright arrows of blood sped back and forth across its face. It is thus described in the old records, few of which remain. It is said that when it appears in the Heavens above, Earth splits open from the heat, like a nut roasted before the fire. Then flames shoot up through the surface and leap about. … The Doomshape .. covers about a fifth part of the sky and sends writhing, snakelike finger down to Earth. Midday is no brighter than night. .. Come, the day surely will, and in accordance with his nature man will be unprepared.
The dark days began with the last visitation of the Destroyer and they were foretold by strange omens in the skies. All men were silent and went about with pale faces. Fear walked the land and woman became barren with terror, they could not conceive, and those with child aborted. The days of stillness were followed by a time when the noise of trumpeting and shrilling was heard in the Heavens, and the people became as frightened beasts without a headsman. … The dead were no longer sacred and were thrown into the waters. He who grew no grain now owned a storehouse full. Cattle were left unattended to roam into strange pastures, and men ignored their marks and slew the beasts of their neighbours. No man owned anything. The public records were cast forth and destroyed, and no man knew who were slaves and who were masters. … Plague was throughout the land, the river was bloody and blood was everywhere. Those who did drink from the river vomited it up. The dust tore wounds in the skin of man and beast.
In the glow of the Destroyer the Earth was filled with redness. The face of the land was battered and devastated by a hail of stones which smashed down all that stood in the path of the torrent. They swept down in hot showers, and strange flowing fire ran along the ground in their wake. The fish of the river died; worms, insects and reptiles sprang up from the Earth. The gloom of a long night spread a dark mantle of blackness which extinguished every ray of light. None knew when it was day and when it was night, for the sun cast no shadow. The darkness was not the clean blackness of night, but a thick darkness in which the breath of men was stopped in their throats. Men gasped in a hot cloud of vapour which enveloped all the land and snuffed out all lamps and fires. … Ships were sucked away from their moorings and destroyed in great whirlpools. It was a time of undoing.
The Earth turned over, as clay spun upon a potter's wheel. … The craftsman left his task undone, the potter abandoned his wheel and the carpenter his tools. … Men lost their senses and became mad. On the great night of the Destroyer's wrath, when its terror was at its height, there was a hail of rocks. … The habitations of men collapsed upon those inside. .. the temples and palaces of the nobles were thrown down from their foundations. Even the great one, the first born of Pharaoh, died with the highborn in the midst of the terror and falling stones. There were nine days of darkness and upheaval, while a tempest raged such as never had been known before. When it passed .. men rose up against those in authority and fled from the cities to swell in tents in the outlands. Egypt lacked great men to deal with the times. The slaves left. Their multitude moved in the gloom of a half dawn, under a mantle of fine swirling grey ash. The night was a night of fear and dread, for there was a high moaning above and fire spang up from the ground.
A strange people came up against Egypt and none stood to fight, for strength and courage were gone. The invaders, … came up .. because of the wrath of Heaven which had laid their land waste. … They enslaved all who were left, the old, young men and boys. They oppressed the people and their delight was in mutilation and torture. Pharaoh abandoned his hopes and fled into the wilderness … He lived a goodly life among the sand wanderers and wrote books. Good times came again, even under the invaders, and ships sailed upstream. The air was purified, .. and the land became filled again with growing things.