gleam of gold, and on removing
the loose earth round the roots of the plant, we came on--No, I will
not, I dare not, describe it. The gold-digger would cast it aside,
the naturalist would pause not to heed it; and did I describe it, and
chemistry deign to subject it to analysis, could chemistry alone detach
or discover its boasted virtues?

Its particles, indeed, are very minute, not seeming readily to
crystallize with each other; each in itself of uniform shape and size,
spherical as the egg which contains the germ of life, and small as the
egg from which the life of an insect may quicken.

But Margrave's keen eye caught sight of the atoms upcast by the light
of the moon. He exclaimed to me, "Found! I shall live!" And then, as he
gathered up the grains with tremulous hands, he called out to the Veiled
Woman, hitherto still seated motionless on the crag. At his word she
rose and went to the place bard by, where the fuel was piled, busying
herself there. I had no leisure to heed her. I continued my search in
the soft and yielding soil that time and the decay of vegetable life had
accumulated over the Pre-Adamite strata on which the arch of the cave
rested its mighty keystone.

When we had collected of these particles about thrice as much as a
man might hold in his hand, we seemed to have exhausted their bed. We
continued still to find gold, but no more of the delicate substance, to
which, in our sight, gold was as dross.

"Enough," then said Margrave, reluctantly desisting. "What we have
gained already will suffice for a life thrice as long as legend
attributes to Haroun. I shall live,--I shall live through the
centuries."

"Forget not that I claim my share."

"Your share--yours! True--your half of my life! It is true." He paused
with a low, ironical, malignant laugh; and then added, as he rose and
turned away, "But the work is yet to be done."

CHAPTER LXXXIV.

While we had thus laboured and found, Ayesha had placed the fuel where
the moonlight fell fullest on the sward of the tableland,--a part of it
already piled as for a fire, the rest of it heaped confusedly close at
hand; and by the pile she had placed the coffer. And there she stood,
her arms folded under her mantle, her dark image seeming darker still
as the moonlight whitened all the ground from which the image rose
motionless. Margrave opened his coffer, the Veiled Woman did not aid
him, and I watched in silence, while he as silently made his