Snorting and bellowing, they plunged their blind
way to the mountains. One cry alone more wild
than their own savage blare pierced the reek
through which the Brute Hurricane swept. At
that cry of wrath and despair I struggled to rise,
again dashed to earth by the hoofs and the horns.
But was it the dream-like deceit of my reeling
senses, or did I see that giant Foot stride past
through the close-serried ranks of the maddening
herds? Did I hear, distinct through all the huge
uproar of animal terror, the roll of low thunder
which followed the stride of that Foot?

CHAPTER LXXXVIII.

WHEN my sense had recovered its shock, and
my eyes looked dizzily round, the charge of the
beasts had swept by; and of all the wild tribes
which had invaded the magical circle, the only
lingerer was the brown Death-adder, coiled
close by the spot where my head had rested.
Beside the extinguished lamps which the hoofs
had confusedly scattered, the fire, arrested by the
watercourse, had consumed the grasses that fed
it, and there the plains stretched black and desert
as the Phlegræan field of the Poet's Hell. But
the fire still raged in the forest beyond. White
flames, soaring up from the trunks of the tallest
trees, and forming, through the sullen dark of
the smoke-reek, innumerable pillars of fire, like
the halls in the City of Fiends.

Gathering myself up, I turned my eyes from
the terrible pomp of the lurid forest, and looked
fearfully down on the hoof-trampled sward for
my two companions.

I saw the dark image of Ayesha still seated,
still bending, as I had seen it last. I saw a pale
hand feebly grasping the rim of the magical
caldron, which lay, hurled down from its tripod
by the rush of the beasts, yards away from the
dim fading embers of the scattered wood pyre. I
saw the faint writhings of a frail wasted frame,
over which the Veiled Woman was bending. I
saw, as I moved with bruised limbs to the place,
close by the lips of the dying magician, the flash
of the ruby-like essence spilt on the sward, and,
meteor-like, sparkling up from the torn tufts of
herbage.

I now reached Margrave's side; bending over
him as the Veiled Woman bent; and as I sought
gently to raise him, he turned his face, fiercely
faltering out, "Touch me not, rob me not. You
share with me! Never—never. These glorious
drops are all mine! Die all else! I will live—I
will live!" Writhing himself from my pitying
arms, he plunged his face amidst the beautiful,
playful flame of the essence, as if to lap the
elixir with lips scorched away from its intolerable
burning. Suddenly, with a low shriek, he fell
back, his face upturned to mine, and on that face
unmistakably reigned Death.

Then Ayesha tenderly, silently drew the young
head to her lap, and it vanished from my sight
behind her black veil.

I knelt beside her, murmuring some trite words
of comfort; but she heeded me not, rocking
herself to and fro as the mother who cradles a child
to sleep. Soon, the fast-flickering sparkles of the
lost elixir died out on the grass, and with their
last sportive diamond-like tremble of light, up, in
all the suddenness of Australian day, rose the
sun, lifting himself royally above the mountain-
tops and fronting the meaner blaze of the forest
as a young king fronts his rebels. And as there,
where the bush fires had ravaged, all was a desert,
so there, where their fury had not spread, all was
a garden. Afar, at the foot of the mountains,
the fugitive herds were grazing; the cranes,
flocking back to the pools, renewed the strange
grace of their gambols; and the great kingfisher,
whose laugh, half in mirth, half in mockery, leads
the choir that welcome the morn—which in
Europe is night—alighted bold on the roof of the
cavern, whose floors were still white with the
bones of races, extinct before, formed to "walk
erect and to gaze upon the stars," rose—so
helpless through instincts, so royal through Soul,—
rose MAN!

But there, on the ground where the dazzling
elixir had wasted its virtues, there the herbage
already had a freshness of verdure which, amid
the duller sward round it, was like an oasis of
green in a desert. And, there, wild flowers, whose
chill hues the eye would have scarcely
distinguished the day before, now glittered forth in
blooms of unfamiliar beauty. Towards that spot
were attracted myriads of happy insects, whose
hum of intense joy was musically loud. But the
form of the life-seeking sorcerer lay rigid and
stark;—blind to the bloom of the wild flowers,
deaf to the glee of the insects—one hand still resting
heavily on the rim of the emptied caldron, and
the face still hid behind the Black Veil. What!
the wondrous elixir, sought with such hope and
well-nigh achieved through such dread, fleeting
back to the earth from which its material was
drawn, to give bloom, indeed,—but to herbs; joy,
indeed,—but to insects!

And now in the flash of the sun, slowly wound
up the slopes that led to the circle, the same
barbaric procession which had sunk into the
valley under the ray of the moon. The armed
men came first, stalwart and tall, their vests
brave with crimson and golden lace; their
weapons gaily gleaming with holiday silver.
After them, the Black Litter. As they came to
the place, Ayesha, not raising her head, spoke to
them in their own Eastern tongue. A wail was
their answer. The armed men bounded forward,
and the bearers left the litter.

All gathered round the dead form with the
face concealed under the black veil—all knelt,
and all wept. Far in the distance, at the foot of
the blue mountains a crowd of the savage natives
had risen up as if from the earth; they stood
motionless, leaning on their clubs and spears, and
looking towards the spot on which we were;
strangely thus brought into the landscape, as if
they, too, the wild dwellers on the verge which
Humanity guards from the Brute, were among
the mourners for the mysterious Child of mysterious