resolute, cheerful, and proud, despite its hollowed outlines and sicklied
hues. He raised his head, spoke in the language unknown to me, and the
armed men and the litter-bearers grouped round him, bending low, their
eyes fixed on the ground. The Veiled Woman rose slowly and came to his
side, motioning away, with a mute sign, the ghastly form on which he
leaned, and passing round him silently, instead, her own sustaining arm.
Margrave spoke again a few sentences, of which I could not even guess the
meaning. When he had concluded, the armed men and the litter-bearers came
nearer to his feet, knelt down, and kissed his hand. They then rose, and
took from the bier-like vehicle the coffer and the fuel. This done, they
lifted again the litter, and again, preceded by the armed men, the
procession descended down the sloping hillside, down into the valley
below.

Margrave now whispered, for some moments, into the ear of the hideous
creature who had made way for the Veiled Woman. The grim skeleton bowed
his head submissively, and strode noiselessly away through the long
grasses,--the slender stems, trampled under his stealthy feet, relifting
themselves, as after a passing wind. And thus he, too, sank out of sight
down into the valley below. On the tableland of the hill remained only we
three,--Margrave, myself, and the Veiled Woman.

She had reseated herself apart, on the gray crag above the dried torrent.
He stood at the entrance of the cavern, round the sides of which clustered
parasital plants, with flowers of all colours, some amongst them opening
their petals and exhaling their fragrance only in the hours of night; so
that, as his form filled up the jaws of the dull arch, obscuring the
moonbeam that strove to pierce the shadows that slept within, it stood
now--wan and blighted--as I had seen it first, radiant and joyous,
literally "framed in blooms."