close and closer we drew each to each,--worlds to one
another! Suddenly there carolled forth the song of a human voice,--a
wild, irregular, half-savage melody, foreign, uncomprehended words,--air
and words not new to me. I recognized the voice and chant of Margrave. I
started, and uttered an angry exclamation.

"Hush!" whispered Lilian, and I felt her frame shiver within my
encircling arm. "Hush! listen! Yes; I have heard that voice before--last
night--"

"Last night! you were not here; you were more than a hundred miles
away."

"I heard it in a dream! Hush, hush!"

The song rose louder; impossible to describe its effect, in the midst
of the tranquil night, chiming over the serried rooftops, and under
the solitary moon. It was not like the artful song of man, for it was
defective in the methodical harmony of tune; it was not like the song of
the wild-bird, for it had no monotony in its sweetness: it was wandering
and various as the sounds from an AEolian harp. But it affected the
senses to a powerful degree, as in remote lands and in vast solitudes I
have since found the note of the mocking-bird, suddenly heard, affects
the listener half with delight, half with awe, as if some demon creature
of the desert were mimicking man for its own merriment. The chant now
had changed into an air of defying glee, of menacing exultation; it
might have been the triumphant war-song of some antique barbarian race.
The note was sinister; a shadow passed through me, and Lilian had closed
her eyes, and was sighing heavily; then with a rapid change, sweet as
the coo with which an Arab mother lulls her babe to sleep, the melody
died away. "There, there, look," murmured Lilian, moving from me, "the
same I saw last night in sleep; the same I saw in the space above, on
the evening I first knew you!"

Her eyes were fixed, her hand raised; my look followed hers, and rested
on the face and form of Margrave. The moon shone full upon him, so full
as if concentrating all its light upon his image. The place on which
he stood (a balcony to the upper story of a house about fifty yards
distant) was considerably above the level of the terrace from which we
gazed on him. His arms were folded on his breast, and he appeared to be
looking straight towards us. Even at that distance, the lustrous youth
of his countenance appeared to me terribly distinct, and the light of
his wondrous eye seemed to rest upon us in one lengthened, steady ray
through the lim