"Enough," then said Margrave, reluctantly desisting. "What we have gained
already will suffice for a life thrice as long as legend attributes to
Haroun. I shall live,--I shall live through the centuries."

"Forget not that I claim my share."

"Your share--yours! True--your half of my life! It is true." He paused
with a low, ironical, malignant laugh; and then added, as he rose and
turned away, "But the work is yet to be done."




CHAPTER LXXXIV.

While we had thus laboured and found, Ayesha had placed the fuel where the
moonlight fell fullest on the sward of the tableland,--a part of it
already piled as for a fire, the rest of it heaped confusedly close at
hand; and by the pile she had placed the coffer. And there she stood, her
arms folded under her mantle, her dark image seeming darker still as the
moonlight whitened all the ground from which the image rose motionless.
Margrave opened his coffer, the Veiled Woman did not aid him, and I
watched in silence, while he as silently made his weird and wizard-like
preparations.




CHAPTER LXXXV.