ly, far away, I saw something like the faint glow
of fire. Perhaps it was a cave where I could get a light--at any rate,
it was worth investigating. Slowly and painfully I crept along the
tunnel, keeping my hand against its wall, and feeling at every step with
my foot before I put it down, fearing lest I should fall into some
pit. Thirty paces--there was a light, a broad light that came and went,
shining through curtains! Fifty paces--it was close at hand! Sixty--oh,
great heaven!

I was at the curtains, and they did not hang close, so I could see
clearly into the little cavern beyond them. It had all the appearance of
being a tomb, and was lit up by a fire that burnt in its centre with a
whitish flame and without smoke. Indeed, there, to the left, was a stone
shelf with a little ledge to it three inches or so high, and on the
shelf lay what I took to be a corpse; at any rate, it looked like one,
with something white thrown over it. To the right was a similar shelf,
on which lay some broidered coverings. Over the fire bent the figure of
a woman; she was sideways to me and facing the corpse, wrapped in a dark
mantle that hid her like a nun's cloak. She seemed to be staring at the
flickering flame. Suddenly, as I was trying to make up my mind what
to do, with a convulsive movement that somehow gave an impression of
despairing energy, the woman rose to her feet and cast the dark cloak
from her.

It was _She_ herself!

She was clothed, as I had seen her when she unveiled, in the kirtle of
clinging white, cut low upon her bosom, and bound in at the waist with
the barbaric double-headed snake, and, as before, her rippling black
hair fell in heavy masses down her back. But her face was what caught my
eye, and held me as in a vice, not this time by the force of its beauty,
but by the power of fascinated terror. The beauty was still there,
indeed, but the agony, the blind passion, and the awful vindictiveness
displayed upon those quivering features, and in the tortured look of the
upturned eyes, were such as surpass my powers of description.

For a moment she stood still, her hands raised high above her head, and
as she did so the white robe slipped from her down to her golden girdle,
baring the blinding loveliness of her form. She stood there, her fingers
clenched, and the awful look of malevolence gathered and deepened on her
face.

Suddenly I thought of what would happen if she discovered me, and the
reflection made me