hining dark hair fell
in elaborate curls over her neck and shoulders. Her dress was that of
a bride; a robe of white satin brocaded with silver, fairly dazzling in
its shining radiance, and as brief in the article of sleeves and neck
as that of any modern belle. A circlet of pearls were clasped round her
snow-white throat, and bracelets of the same jewels encircled the snowy
taper arms. On her head she wore a bridal wreath and veil--the former
of jewels, the latter falling round her like a cloud of mist. Everything
was perfect, from the wreath and veil to the tiny sandaled feet and
lying there in her mute repose she looked more like some exquisite
piece of sculpture than anything that had ever lived and moved in this
groveling world of ours. But from one shoulder the dress had been pulled
down, and there lay a great livid purple plague-spot!

"Come away!" said Ormiston, catching his companion by the arm. "It is
death to remain here!"

Sir Norman had been standing like one in a trance, from which
this address roused him, and he grasped Ormiston's shoulder almost
frantically.

"Look there, Ormiston! There lies the very face that sorceress showed
me, fifteen minutes ago, in her infernal caldron! I would know it at the
other end of the world!"

"Are you sure?" said Ormiston, glancing again with new curiosity at the
marble face. "I never saw anything half so beautiful in all my life; but
you see she is dead of the plague."

"Dead? she cannot be! Nothing so perfect could die!"

"Look there," said Ormiston pointing to the plague-spot. "There is the
fatal token! For Heaven's sake let us get out of this, or we will share
the same fate before morning!"

But Sir Norman did not move--could not move; he stood there rooted to
the spot by the spell of that lovely, lifeless face.

Usually the plague left its victims hideous, ghastly, discolored, and
covered with blotches; but in this case then was nothing to mar the
perfect beauty of the satin-smooth skin, but that one dreadful mark.

There Sir Norman stood in his trance, as motionless as if some genie out
of the "Arabian Nights" had suddenly turned him into stone (a trick they
were much addicted to), and destined him to remain there an ornamental
fixture for ever. Ormiston looked at him distractedly, uncertain whether
to try moral suasion or to take him by the collar and drag him headlong
down the stairs, when a providential but rather dismal circumstance came
to his relief