Margrave accosted her in some language unknown to me. She replied
in what seemed to me the same tongue. The tones of her voice were
sweet, but inexpressibly mournful. The words that they uttered
appeared intended to warn, or deprecate, or dissuade; but they
called to Margrave's brow a lowering frown, and drew from his lips
a burst of unmistakable anger. The woman rejoined, in the same
melancholy music of voice. And Margrave then, leaning his arm upon
her shoulder, as he had leaned it on mine, drew her away from the
group into a neighboring copse of the flowering eucalypti--mystic
trees, never changing the hues of their pale-green leaves, ever
shifting the tints of their ash-gray, shedding bark. For some
moments I gazed on the two human forms, dimly seen by the glinting
moonlight through the gaps in the foliage. Then turning away my
eyes, I saw, standing close at my side, a man whom I had not
noticed before. His footstep, as it stole to me, had fallen on the
sward without sound. His dress, though Oriental, differed from
that of his companions, both in shape and color--fitting close to
the breast, leaving the arms bare to the elbow, and of a uniform
ghastly white, as are the cerements of the grave. His visage was
even darker than those of the Syrians or Arabs behind him, and his
features were those of a bird of prey: the beak of the eagle, but
the eye of the vulture. His cheeks were hollow; the arms, crossed
on his breast, were long and fleshless. Yet in that skeleton form
there was a something which conveyed the idea of a serpent's
suppleness and strength; and as the hungry, watchful eyes met my
own startled gaze, I recoiled impulsively with that inward warning
of danger which is conveyed to man, as to inferior animals, in the
very aspect of the creatures that sting or devour. At my movement
the man inclined his head in the submissive Eastern salutation, and
spoke in his foreign tongue, softly, humbly, fawningly, to judge by