quickened with terror the pulse of my heart; the Bush-land beyond
was on fire. From the background of the forest rose the flame and
the smoke--the smoke, there, still half smothering the flame. But
along the width of the grasses and herbage, between the verge of
the forest and the bed of the water creek just below the raised
platform from which I beheld the dread conflagration, the fire was
advancing--wave upon wave, clear and red against the columns of
rock behind; as the rush of a flood through the mists of some Alp
crowned with lightnings.

Roused from my stun at the first sight of a danger not foreseen by
the mind I had steeled against far rarer portents of Nature, I
cared no more for the lamps and the circle. Hurrying hack to
Ayesha I exclaimed: "The phantoms have gone from the spaces in
front; but what incantation or spell can arrest the red march of
the foe speeding on in the rear! While we gazed on the caldron of
life, behind us, unheeded, behold the Destroyer!"

Ayesha looked and made no reply, but, as by involuntary instinct,
bowed her majestic head, then rearing it erect, placed herself yet
more immediately before the wasted form of the young magician (he
still, bending over the caldron, and hearing me not in the
absorption and hope of his watch)--placed herself before him, as
the bird whose first care is her fledgling.

As we two there stood, fronting the deluge of fire, we heard
Margrave behind us, murmuring low, "See the bubbles of light, how
they sparkle and dance--I shall live, I shall live!" And his words
scarcely died in our ears before, crash upon crash, came the fall
of the age-long trees in the forest, and nearer, all near us,