savage beasts

Far ahead of them, Merle saw the war galleys of the Pharaoh, tiny as toys. […] The same ships had already—at the beginning of the great mummy war—set loose the first scarab swarms in all the leading countries.

As the seeress stood irresolute the tall young secretary half rose and whispered something in her ear.

As the vapour cooled the water would be precipitated, and an ocean would surround the spherical nucleus with a superincumbent atmosphere.