attributes to Haroun. I shall live--I shall live through the
centuries."

"Forget not that I claim my share."

"Your share--yours! True--your half of my life! It is true." He
paused with a low, ironical, malignant laugh, and then added, as he
rose and turned away, "But the work is yet to be done."


VI


While we had thus labored and found, Ayesha had placed the fuel
where the moonlight fell fullest on the sward of the tableland--a
part of it already piled as for a fire, the rest of it heaped
confusedly close at hand; and by the pile 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.


VII


On the ground a wide circle was traced by a small rod, tipped
apparently with sponge saturated with some combustible naphtha-like