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27 Though daylight was dawning, darkness came. Lightning flashed, a flame shot up. The clouds swelled, it rained death! Then the glow vanished, the fire went out, And all that had fallen was turned to ashes. Awed but undeterred, the next day Gilgamesh and Enkidu discovered the secret entrance that had been used by the Anunnaki, but as soon as they entered it, they were attacked by a robotlike guardian who was armed with death beams and a revolving fire. They managed to destroy the monster, and relaxed by a brook thinking that their way in was clear. But when they ventured deeper into the Cedar Forest, a new challenger appeared: the Bull of Heaven. Unfortunately, the sixth tablet of the epic is too damaged for the lines describing the creature and the battle with it to be completely legible. The legible portions do make it clear that the two comrades ran for their lives, pursued by the Bull of Heaven all the way back to Uruk; it was there that Enkidu managed to slay it. The text becomes legible where the boastful Gilgamesh, who cut off the bull’s thigh, “called “And It Came to Pass” FIGURE 14