On the ground a wide circle was traced by a small rod, tipped apparently
with sponge saturated with some combustible naphtha-like fluid, so that a
pale lambent flame followed the course of the rod as Margrave guided it,
burning up the herbage over which it played, and leaving a distinct ring,
like that which, in our lovely native fable-talk, we call the "Fairy's
Ring," but yet more visible because marked in phosphorescent light. On
the ring thus formed were placed twelve small lamps, fed with the fluid
from the same vessel, and lighted by the same rod. The light emitted by
the lamps was more vivid and brilliant than that which circled round the
ring.

Within the circumference, and immediately round the woodpile, Margrave
traced certain geometrical figures, in which--not without a shudder, that
I overcame at once by a strong effort of will in murmuring to myself the
name of "Lilian"--I recognized the interlaced triangles which my own hand,
in the spell enforced on a sleep-walker, had described on the floor of the
wizard's pavilion. The figures were traced, like the circle, in flame,
and at the point of each triangle (four in number) was placed a lamp,
brilliant as those on the ring. This task performed, the caldron, based
on an iron tripod, was placed on the wood-pile. And then the woman,
before inactive and unheeding, slowly advanced, knelt by the pile, and
lighted it. The dry wood crackled and the flame burst forth, licking the
rims of the caldron with tongues of fire.

Margrave flung into the caldron the particles we had collected, poured
over them first a liquid, colourless as water, from the largest of the
vessels drawn from his coffer, and then, more sparingly, drops from small
crystal phials, like the phials I had seen in the hand of Philip Derval.

Having surmounted my first impulse of awe, I watched these proceedings,