e
lightest of all it is but to renew from this vessel the fluid that burns
in the lamps, and on the ring. Observe, the contents of the vessel must
be thriftily husbanded; there is enough, but not more than enough, to
sustain the light in the lamps, on the lines traced round the caldron,
and on the farther ring, for six hours. The compounds dissolved in this
fluid are scarce,--only obtainable in the East, and even in the East
months might have passed before I could have increased my supply.

"I had no months to waste. Replenish, then, the light only when it
begins to flicker or fade. Take heed, above all, that no part of the
outer ring--no, not an inch--and no lamp of the twelve, that are to its
zodiac like stars, fade for one moment in darkness."

I took the crystal vessel from his hand.

"The vessel is small," said I, "and what is yet left of its contents is
but scanty; whether its drops suffice to replenish the lights I cannot
guess,--I can but obey your instructions. But, more important by far
than the light to the lamps and the circle, which in Asia or Africa
might scare away the wild beasts unknown to this land--more important
than light to a lamp, is the strength to your frame, weak magician! What
will support you through six weary hours of night-watch?"

"Hope," answered Margrave, with a ray of his old dazzling style. "Hope!
I shall live,--I shall live through the centuries!"

CHAPTER LXXXVI.

One hour passed away; the fagots under the caldron burned clear in
the sullen sultry air. The materials within began to seethe, and their
colour, at first dull and turbid, changed into a pale-rose hue; from
time to time the Veiled Woman replenished the fire, after she had done
so reseating herself close by the pyre, with her head bowed over her
knees, and her face hid under her veil.

The lights in the lamps and along the ring and the triangles now began
to pale. I resupplied their nutriment from the crystal vessel. As
yet nothing strange startled my eye or my ear beyond the rim of the
circle,--nothing audible, save, at a distance, the musical wheel-like
click of the locusts, and, farther still, in the forest, the howl of
the wild dogs, that never bark; nothing visible, but the trees and the
mountain-range girding the plains silvered by the moon, and the arch of
the cavern, the flush of wild blooms on its sides, and the gleam of dry
bones on its floor, where the moonlight shot into the gloom.

The second hour