ON the ground a wide circle was lamps was more vivid and brilliant traced by a small rod, tipped appa-than that which circled round the rently with sponge saturated with ring. 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 fabletalk, 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 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. The figures were traced, like the circle, in flame, and at the point of each triangle (four in number) was placed a lamp, brilliant | that burns in the lamps, and on the as those on the ring. This task ring. Observe, the contents of the performed, the cauldron, 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, cauldron, and on the farther ring, and lighted it. The dry wood crackled and the flame burst forth, licking the rims of the cauldron with tongues of fire. Margrave flung into the cauldron 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. 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 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 "If," thought I, "these are but artful devices to inebriate and fool-I can but obey your instructions. my own imagination, my imagination But, more important by far than is on its guard, and reason shall not, the light to the lamps and the circle, this time, sleep at her post!" 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?" "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 cauldron; 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 "Hope," answered Margrave, with a ray of his old dazzling style. "Hope! I shall live-I shall live through the centuries." CHAPTER LXXXVI. ONE hour passed away, the fagots "I know not, I care not,” he anunder the cauldron burned clear in swered impetuously. "The essence the sullen sultry air. The materials is bursting the shell that confined within began to seethe, and their it. Here are my air and my earth! colour, at first dull and turbid, Trouble me not. Look to the circle changed into a pale-rose hue; from-feed the lamps if they fail." time to time the Veiled Woman I passed by the Veiled Woman replenished the fire, after she had as I walked towards a place in the done so reseating herself close by the ring in which the flame was waning pyre, with her head bowed over her dim. And I whispered to her the knees, and her face hid under her same question which I had whisveil. pered to Margrave. She looked slowly around and answered, “So is it before the Invisible make themselves visible! Did I not bid him forbear?" Her head again drooped on her breast, and her watch was again fixed on the fire. 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 cauldron, 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 hey seem to vibrate to you?" I advanced to the circle and stooped to replenish the light where it waned. As I did so, on my arm, which stretched somewhat beyond the line of the ring, I felt a shock like that of electricity. The arm fell to my side numbed and nerveless, and from my hand dropped, but within the ring, the vessel that contained the fluid. Recovering my surprise or my stun, hastily with the other hand I caught up the vessel, but some of the scanty liquid was already spilled on the sward; and I saw with a thrill of dismay, that contrasted indeed the tranquil indifference with which I had first undertaken my charge, how small a supply was now left. I went back to Margrave, and told him of the shock, and of its consequence in the waste of the liquid. "Beware," said he, "that not a motion of the arm, not an inch of the foot, pass the verge of the ring; and if the fluid be thus unhappily stinted, reserve all that is left for | from his coffer, looked up, defyingly, the protecting circle and the twelve fiercely: outer lamps! See how the Grand "Ye come," he said in a low Work advances! how the hues in mutter, his once mighty voice the cauldron are glowing blood-sounding hollow and labouring, but red through the film on the sur- fearless and firm-"ye come,-not face!" to conquer, vain rebels!-ye whose dark chief I struck down at my feet in the tomb where my spell had And now four hours of the six were gone; my arm had gradually recovered its strength. Neither raised up the ghost of your first the ring nor the lamps had again required replenishing; perhaps their light was exhausted less quickly, as it was no longer to be exposed to the rays of the intense Australian moon. Clouds had gathered over the sky, and though the moon gleamed at times in the gaps that they left in blue air, her beam was more hazy and dulled. The locusts no longer were heard in the grass, nor the howl of the dogs in the forest. Out of the circle, the stillness was profound. And about this time I saw distinctly in the distance a vast Eye! It drew nearer and nearer, seeming to move from the ground at the height of some lofty giant. Its gaze riveted mine; my blood curdled in the blaze from its angry ball; and now as it advanced larger and larger, other Eyes, as if of giants in its train, grew out from the space in its rear; numbers on numbers, like the spear-heads of some Eastern army, seen afar by pale warders of battlements doomed to the dust. My voice long refused an utterance to my awe; at length it burst forth shrill and loud: human master, the Chaldee! Earth and air have their armies still faithful to me, and still I remember the war-song that summons them up to confront you! AyeshaAyesha! recall the wild troth that we pledged amongst roses; recall the dread bond by which we united our sway over hosts that yet own thee as queen, though my sceptre is broken, my diadem reft from my brows!" The Veiled Woman rose at this adjuration. Her veil now was withdrawn, and the blaze of the fire between Margrave and herself flushed, as with the rosy bloom of youth, the grand beauty of her softened face. It was seen, detached as it were, from her dark-mantled form; seen through the mist of the vapours which rose from the cauldron, framing it round like the clouds that are yieldingly pierced by the light of the evening star. Through the haze of the vapour came her voice, more musical, more plaintive than I had heard it before, but far softer, more tender; still in her foreign tongue; the words unknown to me, and yet their sense, perhaps, made intelligible by the love, which has one common language and one common look to all who have loved-the love unmistakeably heard in the loving tone, unmistakeably seen in the loving face. A moment or so more, and she had come round from the opposite side of the fire-pile, and bending over Margrave's upturned brow, carol, compared to the depth, and kissed it quietly, solemnly; and the art, and the soul of the singer, then her countenance grew fierce, whose voice seemed endowed with a her crest rose erect; it was the charm to enthral all the tribes of lioness protecting her young. She creation, though the language it stretched forth her arm from the used for that charm might to them, black mantle, athwart the pale front as to me, be unknown. As the song that now again bent over the caul- ceased, I heard, from behind, sounds dron; stretched it towards the like those I had heard in the spaces haunted and hollow-sounding space before me; the tramp of invisible beyond, in the gesture of one whose feet, the whirr of invisible wings, as right hand has the sway of the if armies were marching to aid sceptre. And then her voice stole against armies in march to destroy. on the air in the music of a chant, not loud yet far-reaching; so thrilling, so sweet, and yet so solemn, that I could at once comprehend how legend united of old the spell of enchantment with the power of song. All that I recalled of the effects which, in the former time, Margrave's strange chants had produced on the ear that they ravished and the thoughts they confused, was but as the wild bird's imitative "Look not in front nor around," said Ayesha. "Look, like him, on the cauldron below. The circle and the lamps are yet bright; I will tell thee when the light again fails." I dropped my eyes on the cauldron. See," whispered Margrave, "the sparkles at last begin to arise, and the rose-hues to deepen-signs that we near the last process." CHAPTER LXXXVII. THE fifth hour had passed away, | round the half of the wide circle in when Ayesha said to me, "Lo! the circle is fading; the lamps grow dim. Look now without fear on the space beyond; the eyes that appalled thee are again lost in air, as lightnings that fleet back into cloud." I looked up, and the spectres had vanished. The sky was tinged with sulphurous hues, the red and the black intermixed. I replenished the lamps and the ring in front, thriftily, heedfully; but when I came to the sixth lamp, not a drop in the vessel that fed them was left. In a vague dismay, I now looked rear of the two bended figures intent on the cauldron. All along that disc the light was already broken, here and there flickering up, here and there dying down; the six lamps in that half of the circle still twinkled, but faintly, as stars shrinking fast from the dawn of day. But it was not the fading shine in that half of the magical ring which daunted my eye and quickened with terror the pulse of my heart; the Bush-land beyond was on fire. From the background of the forest rose the flame and the smoke-the smoke, there, still half |