solemnly; and then her countenance grew fierce, her crest rose erect; it
was the lioness protecting her young. She stretched forth her arm from
the black mantle, athwart the pale front that now again bent over the
caldron,--stretched it towards the haunted and hollow-sounding space
beyond, in the gesture of one whose right hand has the sway of the
sceptre. And then her voice stole on the air in the music of a chant, not
loud, yet far-reaching; so thrilling, so sweet, and yet so solemn, that I
could at once comprehend how legend united of old the spell of enchantment
with the power of song. All that I recalled of the effects which, in the
former time, Margrave's strange chants had produced on the ear that they
ravished and the thoughts they confused, was but as the wild bird's
imitative carol, compared to the depth and the art and the soul of the
singer, whose voice seemed endowed with a charm to enthrall all the tribes
of creation, though the language it used for that charm might to them, as
to me, be unknown. As the song ceased, I heard, from behind, sounds like
those I had heard in the spaces before me,--the tramp of invisible feet,
the whir of invisible wings, as if armies were marching to aid against
armies in march to destroy.

"Look not in front nor around," said Ayesha. "Look, like him, on the
caldron below. The circle and the lamps are yet bright; I will tell you
when the light again fails."

I dropped my eyes on the caldron.

"See," whispered Margrave, "the sparkles at last begin to arise, and the
rose-hues to deepen,--signs that we near the last process."