the features of her face were hidden by a black veil, except only the
dark, bright, solemn eyes. Her stature was lofty, her bearing majestic,
whether in movement or repose.

Margrave accosted her in some language unknown to me. She replied in what
seemed to me the same tongue. The tones of her voice were sweet, but
inexpressibly mournful. The words that they uttered appeared intended to
warn, or deprecate, or dissuade; but they called to Margrave's brow a
lowering frown, and drew from his lips a burst of unmistakable anger. The
woman rejoined, in the same melancholy music of voice. And Margrave then,
leaning his arm upon her shoulder, as he had leaned it on mine, drew her
away from the group into a neighbouring copse of the flowering
eucalypti,--mystic trees, never changing the hues of their pale-green
leaves, ever shifting the tints of their ash-gray, shedding bark. For
some moments I gazed on the two human forms, dimly seen by the glinting
moonlight through the gaps in the foliage. Then turning away my eyes, I
saw, standing close at my side, a man whom I had not noticed before. His
footstep, as it stole to me, had fallen on the sward without sound. His
dress, though Oriental, differed from that of his companions, both in
shape and colour; fitting close to the breast, leaving the arms bare to
the elbow, and of a uniform ghastly white, as are the cerements of the
grave. His visage was even darker than those of the Syrians or Arabs
behind him, and his features were those of a bird of prey,--the beak of
the eagle, but the eye of the vulture. His cheeks were hollow; the arms,
crossed on his breast, were long and fleshless. Yet in that skeleton form
there was a something which conveyed the idea of a serpent's suppleness
and strength; and as the hungry, watchful eyes met my own startled gaze, I
recoiled impulsively with that inward warning of danger which is conveyed
to man, as to inferior animals, in the very aspect of the creatures that
sting or devour. At my movement the man inclined his head in the