II


Along the grass track I saw now, under the moon, just risen, a
strange procession--never seen before in Australian pastures. It
moved on, noiselessly but quickly. We descended the hillock, and
met it on the way; a sable litter, borne by four men, in unfamiliar
Eastern garments; two other servitors, more bravely dressed, with
yataghans and silver-hilted pistols in their belts, preceded this
somber equipage. Perhaps Margrave divined the disdainful thought
that passed through my mind, vaguely and half-unconsciously; for he
said with a hollow, bitter laugh that had replaced the lively peal
of his once melodious mirth:

"A little leisure and a little gold, and your raw colonist, too,
will have the tastes of a pasha."

I made no answer. I had ceased to care who and what was my
tempter. To me his whole being was resolved into one problem: had
he a secret by which death could be turned from Lilian?

But now, as the litter halted, from the long, dark shadow which it
cast upon the turf, the figure of a woman emerged and stood before
us. The outlines of her shape were lost in the loose folds of a
black mantle, and the features of her face were hidden by a black
veil, except only the dark-bright, solemn eyes. Her stature was
lofty, her bearing majestic, whether in movement or repose.