important by far than the light to the lamps and the circle, 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?"

"Hope," answered Margrave, with a ray of his old dazzling style.
"Hope! I shall live--I shall live through the centuries!"


VIII


One hour passed away; the fagots under the caldron burned clear in
the sullen, sultry air. The materials within began to seethe, and
their color, at first dull and turbid, changed into a pale-rose
hue; from time to time the Veiled Woman replenished the fire, after
she had done so reseating herself close by the pyre, with her head
bowed over her knees, and her face hid under her veil.

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.