The boy smiled back at him and he continued to bend above the bed with
flitting hands. Suddenly the little prince began to laugh.

"What does your Highness feel?" the magician asked.

"A prickling...such a soft warm prickling...as if my blood were sunshine
with motes dancing in it...or as if that sparkling wine of France were
running all over my body."

"It is an agreeable sensation, your Highness?"

The boy nodded.

"It is well with your Highness?"

"Very well."

Heiligenstern began a loud rhythmic chant, and gradually the air
darkened, but with the mild dimness of a summer twilight, through which
sparks could be seen flickering like fire-flies about the reclining
prince. The hush grew deeper; but in the stillness Odo became aware of
some unseen influence that seemed to envelope him in waves of exquisite
sensation. It was as though the vast silence of the night had poured
into the room and, like a dark tepid sea, was lapping about his body and
rising to his lips. His thoughts, dissolved into emotion, seemed to
waver and float on the stillness like sea-weed on the lift of the tide.
He stood spell-bound, lulled, yielding himself to a blissful
dissolution.

Suddenly he became aware that the hush was too intense, too complete;