eleton bowed
his head submissively, and strode noiselessly away through the long
grasses,--the slender stems, trampled under his stealthy feet, relifting
themselves, as after a passing wind. And thus he, too, sank out of sight
down into the valley below. On the tableland of the hill remained only
we three,--Margrave, myself, and the Veiled Woman.

She had reseated herself apart, on the gray crag above the dried
torrent. He stood at the entrance of the cavern, round the sides of
which clustered parasital plants, with flowers of all colours, some
amongst them opening their petals and exhaling their fragrance only in
the hours of night; so that, as his form filled up the jaws of the dull
arch, obscuring the moonbeam that strove to pierce the shadows that
slept within, it stood now--wan and blighted--as I had seen it first,
radiant and joyous, literally "framed in blooms."

CHAPTER LXXXII.

"So," said Margrave, turning to me, "under the soil that spreads around
us lies the gold which to you and to me is at this moment of no value,
except as a guide to its twin-born,--the regenerator of life!"

"You have not yet described to me the nature of the substance which we
are to explore, nor of the process by which the virtues you impute to it
are to be extracted."

"Let us first find the gold, and instead of describing the life-amber,
so let me call it, I will point it out to your own eyes. As to the
process, your share in it is so simple, that you will ask me why I seek
aid from a chemist. The life-amber, when found, has but to be subjected
to heat and fermentation for six hours; it will be placed, in a small
caldron which that coffer contains, over the fire which that fuel
will feed. To give effect to the process, certain alkalies and other
ingredients are required; but these are prepared, and mine is the task
to commingle them. From your science as chemist I need and ask nought.
In you I have sought only the aid of a man."

"If that be so, why, indeed, seek me at all? Why not confide in those
swarthy attendants, who doubtless are slaves to your orders?"

"Confide in slaves! when the first task enjoined to them would be to
discover, and refrain from purloining gold! Seven such unscrupulous
knaves, or even one such, and I, thus defenceless and feeble! Such is
not the work that wise masters confide to fierce slaves. But that is
the least of the reasons which exclude them from my choice, and fix my
choice of assistant