"Look not in front nor around," said Ayesha. "Look, like him, on
the caldron below. The circle and the lamps are yet bright; I will
tell you when the light again fails."

I dropped my eyes on the caldron.

"See," whispered Margrave, "the sparkles at last begin to arise,
and the rose hues to deepen--signs that we near the last process."


IX


The fifth hour had passed away, 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 specters 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 round the half
of the wide circle in rear of the two bended figures intent on the
caldron. All along that disk 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