dashed to earth by the hoofs and
the horns. But was it the dream-like deceit of my reeling senses, or did
I see that giant Foot stride past through the close-serried ranks of
the maddening herds? Did I hear, distinct through all the huge uproar of
animal terror, the roll of low thunder which followed the stride of that
Foot?

CHAPTER LXXXVIII.

When my sense had recovered its shock, and my eyes looked dizzily round,
the charge of the beasts had swept by; and of all the wild tribes
which had invaded the magical circle, the only lingerer was the brown
Death-adder, coiled close by the spot where my head had rested. Beside
the extinguished lamps which the hoofs had confusedly scattered, the
fire, arrested by the watercourse, had consumed the grasses that fed it,
and there the plains stretched, black and desert as the Phlegroean
Field of the Poet's Hell. But the fire still raged in the forest
beyond,--white flames, soaring up from the trunks of the tallest trees,
and forming, through the sullen dark of the smoke-reek, innumerable
pillars of fire, like the halls in the City of fiends.

Gathering myself up, I turned my eyes from the terrible pomp of the
lurid forest, and looked fearfully down on the hoof-trampled sward for
my two companions.

I saw the dark image of Ayesha still seated, still bending, as I had
seen it last. I saw a pale hand feebly grasping the rim of the magical
caldron, which lay, hurled down from its tripod by the rush of
the beasts, yards away from the dim fading embers of the scattered
wood-pyre. I saw the faint writhings of a frail wasted frame, over which
the Veiled Woman was bending. I saw, as I moved with bruised limbs to
the place, close by the lips of the dying magician, the flash of the
ruby-like essence spilled on the sward, and, meteor-like, sparkling up
from the torn tufts of herbage.

I now reached Margrave's side. Bending over him as the Veiled Woman
bent, and as I sought gently to raise him, he turned his face, fiercely
faltering out, "Touch me not, rob me not! You share with me! Never!
never! These glorious drops are all mine! Die all else! I will live! I
will live!" Writhing himself from my pitying arms, he plunged his face
amidst the beautiful, playful flame of the essence, as if to lap the
elixir with lips scorched away from its intolerable burning. Suddenly,
with a low shriek, he fell back, his face upturned to mine, and on that
face unmistakably reigned Death!

Then Ayesha