"Thinkest thou," she answered without raising her mournful head,
"that the Agencies of Nature are the movements of chance? The
Spirits I invoked to his aid are leagued with the hosts that
assail. A mightier than I am has doomed him!"
Scarcely had she uttered these words before Margrave exclaimed,
"Behold how the Rose of the alchemist's dream enlarges its blooms
from the folds of its petals! I shall live, I shall live!"
I looked, and the liquid which glowed in the caldron had now taken
a splendor that mocked all comparisons borrowed from the luster of
gems. In its prevalent color it had, indeed, the dazzle and flash
of the ruby; but out from the mass of the molten red, broke
coruscations of all prismal hues, shooting, shifting, in a play
that made the wavelets themselves seem living things, sensible of
their joy. No longer was there scum or film upon the surface; only
ever and anon a light, rosy vapor floating up, and quick lost in
the haggard, heavy, sulphurous air, hot with the conflagration
rushing toward us from behind. And these coruscations formed, on
the surface of the molten ruby, literally the shape of a rose, its
leaves made distinct in their outlines by sparks of emerald and
diamond and sapphire.
Even while gazing on this animated liquid luster, a buoyant delight
seemed infused into my senses; all terrors conceived before were
annulled; the phantoms, whose armies had filled the wide spaces in
front, were forgotten; the crash of the forest behind was unheard.
In the reflection of that glory, Margrave's wan cheek seemed
already restored to the radiance it wore when I saw it first in the
framework of blooms.
As I gazed, thus enchanted, a cold hand touched my own.
"Hush!" whispered Ayesha, from the black veil, against which the
rays of the caldron fell blunt, and absorbed into Dark. "Behind
us, the light of the circle is extinct; but there, we are guarded
from all save the brutal and soulless destroyers. But, before!--
but, before!--see, two of the lamps have died out!--see the blank
of the gap in the ring! Guard that breach--there the demons will
enter."
"Not a drop is there left in this vessel by which to replenish the
lamps on the ring."
"Advance, then; thou hast still the light of the soul, and the
demons may recoil before a soul that is dauntless and guiltless.
If not, Three are lost!--as it is, One is doomed."
Thus adjured, silently, involuntarily, I passed from the Veiled
Woman's side, over the sear lines on the turf which had been traced
by the triangles of light long since extinguished, and toward the
verge of the circle. As I advanced, overhead rushed a dark cloud
of wings--birds dislodged from the forest on fire, and screaming,
in dissonant terror, as they flew toward the farthermost mountains;
close by my feet hissed and glided the snakes, driven forth from
their blazing coverts, and glancing through the ring, unscared by
its waning lamps; all undulating by me, bright-eyed, and hissing,
all made innocuous by fear--even the terrible Death-adder, which I
trampled on as I halted at the verge of the circle, did not turn to
bite, but crept harmless away. I halted at the gap between the two
dead lamps, and bowed my head to look again into the crystal
vessel. Were there, indeed, no lingering drops yet left, if but to
recruit the lamps for some priceless minutes more? As I thus
stood, right into the gap between the two dead lamps strode a
gigantic Foot. All the rest of the form was unseen; only, as
volume after volume of smoke poured on from the burning land
behind, it seemed as if one great column of vapor, eddying round,
settled itself aloft from the circle, and that out from that column
strode the giant Foot. And, as strode the Foot, so with it came,
like the sound of its tread, a roll of muttered thunder.