she had placed the coffer. And there she stood,
her arms folded under her mantle, her dark image
seeming darker still as the moonlight whitened
all the ground from which the image rose
motionless. Margrave opened his coffer, the
Veiled Woman did not aid him, and I watched
in silence, while he as silently made his weird
and wizard-like preparations.

CHAPTER LXXXV.

ON the ground a wide circle was traced by a
small rod, tipped apparently with sponge
saturated with some combustible naphtha-like fluid,
so that a pale lambent flame followed the course
of the rod as Margrave guided it, burning up the
herbage over which it played, and leaving a
distinct ring, like that which, in our lovely native
fable-talk, we call the "Fairy's Ring," but yet
more visible because marked in phosphorescent
light. On the ring thus formed were placed
twelve small lamps fed with the fluid from the
same vessel, and lighted by the same rod. The
light emitted by the lamps was more vivid and
brilliant than that which circled round the ring.

Within the circumference, and immediately
round the wood pile, Margrave traced certain
geometrical figures in which, not without a shudder,
that I overcame at once by a strong effort of
will in murmuring to myself the name of " Lilian,"
I recognised the interlaced triangles which my
own hand, in the spell enforced on a sleep-walker,
had described on the floor of the wizard's pavilion.
These figures were traced, like the circle, in
flame, and at the point of each triangle (four in
number) was placed a lamp, brilliant as those on
the ring. This task performed, the caldron,
based on an iron tripod, was placed on the wood
pile. And then the woman, before inactive and
unheeding, slowly advanced, knelt by the pile,
and lighted it. The dry wood crackled and the
flame burst forth, licking the rims of the caldron
with tongues of fire.

Margrave flung into the caldron the particles
we had collected, poured over them first a liquid
colourless as water, from the largest of the
vessels drawn from his coffer, and then, more
sparingly, drops from small crystal phials, like
the phials I had seen in the hand of Philip
Derval.

Having surmounted my first impulse of awe,
I watched these proceedings, curious yet
disdainful, as one who watches the mummeries of an
enchanter on the stage.

"If," thought I, " these are but artful devices
to inebriate and fool my own imagination, my
imagination is on its guard, and reason shall
not, this time, sleep at her post!"

"And now," said Margrave, " I consign to you
the easy task by which you are to merit your
share of the elixir. It is my task to feed and
replenish the caldron; it is Ayesha's to heed the
fire, which must not for a moment relax in its
measured and steady heat. Your task is the
lightest of all: it is but to renew from this vessel
the fluid that burns in the lamps, and on the
ring. Observe, the contents of the vessel must
be thriftily husbanded; there is enough, but not
more than enough, to sustain the light in the
lamps, on the lines traced round the caldron,
and on the farther ring, for six hours. The
compounds dissolved in this fluid are scarce—
only obtainable in the East, and even in the East
months might have passed before I could have
increased my supply. I had no months to waste.
Replenish then the light only when it begins to
flicker or fade. Take heed, above all, that no
part of the outer ring—no, not an inch—and no
lamp of the twelve, that are to its zodiac like
stars, fade for one moment in darkness."

I took the crystal vessel from his hand.

"The vessel is small," said I, " and what is
yet left of its contents is but scanty; whether its
drops suffice to replenish the lights I cannot guess,
I can but obey your instructions. But, more
important by far than the light to the lamps and
the circle, which in Asia or Africa might scare
away the wild beasts unknown to this land—
more important than light to a lamp, is the
strength to your frame, weak magician! What
will support you through six weary hours of
night-watch?"

"Hope," answered Margrave, with a ray of his
old dazzling smile. "Hope. I shall live—I
shall live through the centuries."

CHAPTER LXXXVI.

ONE hour passed away, the fagots under the
caldron burned clear in the sullen sultry air.
The materials within began to seethe, and their
colour, at first dull and turbid, changed into a
pale rose hue; from time to time the Veiled
Woman replenished the fire, after she had done
so reseating herself close by the pyre, with her
head bowed over her knees, and her face hid
under her veil.

The lights in the lamps and along the ring and
the triangles now began to pale. I resupplied
their nutriment from the crystal vessel. As yet
nothing strange startled my eye or my ear beyond
the rim of the circle. Nothing audible, save, at
a distance, the musical wheel-like click of the
locusts, and, farther still in the forest, the howl
of the wild dogs that never bark. Nothing visible,
but the trees and the mountain-range girding the
plains silvered by the moon, and the arch of the
cavern, the flush of wild blooms on its sides, and
the gleam of dry bones on its floor where the
moonlight shot into the gloom.

The second hour passed like the first. I had
taken my stand by the side of Margrave, watching
with him the process at work in the caldron,
when I felt the ground slightly vibrate beneath
my feet, and, looking up, it seemed as if all the
plains beyond the circle were heaving like the
swell of the sea, and as if in the air itself there
was a perceptible tremor.

I placed my hand on Margrave's shoulder and
whispered, " To me earth and air seem to vibrate.
Do they seem to vibrate to you?"

"I know not, I care not," he answered,
impetuously. " The essence is bursting the shell