Ayesha silently drew her black veil over her face, and turned, with
the being she loved, from the terror he scorned, to share in the
hope that he cherished.

Thus left alone, with my reason disinthralled, disenchanted, I
surveyed more calmly the extent of the actual peril with which we
were threatened, and the peril seemed less, so surveyed.

It is true all the Bush-land behind, almost up to the bed of the
creek, was on fire; but the grasses, through which the flame spread
so rapidly, ceased at the opposite marge of the creek. Watery
pools were still, at intervals, left in the bed of the creek,
shining tremulous, like waves of fire, in the glare reflected from
the burning land; and even where the water failed, the stony course
of the exhausted rivulet was a barrier against the march of the
conflagration. Thus, unless the wind, now still, should rise, and
waft some sparks to the parched combustible herbage immediately
around us, we were saved from the fire, and our work might yet be
achieved.

I whispered to Ayesha the conclusion to which I came.

"Thinkest thou," she answered without raising her mournful head,
"that the Agencies of Nature are the movements of chance? The
Spirits I invoked to his aid are leagued with the hosts that
assail. A mightier than I am has doomed him!"

Scarcely had she uttered these words before Margrave exclaimed,
"Behold how the Rose of the alchemist's dream enlarges its blooms
from the folds of its petals! I shall live, I shall live!"