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 woodpile,
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 recognized the
interlaced triangles which my own hand, in the spell enforced on a
sleepwalker, 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 as
those on the ring. This task performed, the caldron, based on an
iron tripod, was placed on the woodpile. 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, colorless 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.