sent forth from the Phlegethon burning below,--"and this witch, whom I
trusted, is a vile slave and impostor, more desiring my death than my
life. She thinks that in life I should scorn and forsake her, that in
death I should die in her arms! Sorceress, avaunt! Art thou useless and
powerless now when I need thee most? Go! Let the world be one funeral
pyre! What to me is the world? My world is my life! Thou knowest that
my last hope is here,--that all the strength left me this night will die
down, like the lamps in the circle, unless the elixir restore it. Bold
friend, spurn that sorceress away. Hours yet ere those flames can assail
us! A few minutes more, and life to your Lilian and me!"

Thus having said, Margrave turned from us, and cast into the caldron the
last essence yet left in his empty coffer. Ayesha silently drew her black
veil over her face; and turned, with the being she loved, from the terror
he scorned, to share in the hope that he cherished.

Thus left alone, with my reason disenthralled, disenchanted, I surveyed
more calmly the extent of the actual peril with which we were threatened,
and the peril seemed less, so surveyed.

It is true all the Bush-land behind, almost up to the bed of the creek,
was on fire; but the grasses, through which the flame spread so rapidly,
ceased at the opposite marge of the creek. Watery pools were still, at
intervals, left in the bed of the creek, shining tremulous, like waves of
fire, in the glare reflected from the burning land; and even where the
water failed, the stony course of the exhausted rivulet was a barrier
against the march of the conflagration. Thus, unless the wind, now still,
should rise, and waft some sparks to the parched combustible herbage
immediately around us, we were saved from the fire, and our work might yet
be achieved.