I saw the dark image of Ayesha still seated, still bending, as I had seen
it last. I saw a pale hand feebly grasping the rim of the magical
caldron, which lay, hurled down from its tripod by the rush of the beasts,
yards away from the dim fading embers of the scattered wood-pyre. I saw
the faint writhings of a frail wasted frame, over which the Veiled Woman
was bending. I saw, as I moved with bruised limbs to the place, close by
the lips of the dying magician, the flash of the ruby-like essence spilled
on the sward, and, meteor-like, sparkling up from the torn tufts of
herbage.

I now reached Margrave's side. Bending over him as the Veiled Woman bent,
and as I sought gently to raise him, he turned his face, fiercely
faltering out, "Touch me not, rob me not! You share with me! Never!
never! These glorious drops are all mine! Die all else! I will live! I
will live!" Writhing himself from my pitying arms, he plunged his face
amidst the beautiful, playful flame of the essence, as if to lap the
elixir with lips scorched away from its intolerable burning. Suddenly,
with a low shriek, he fell back, his face upturned to mine, and on that
face unmistakably reigned Death!

Then Ayesha tenderly, silently, drew the young head to her lap, and it
vanished from my sight behind her black veil.

I knelt beside her, murmuring some trite words of comfort; but she heeded
me not, rocking herself to and fro as the mother who cradles a child to
sleep. Soon the fast-flickering sparkles of the lost elixir died out on
the grass; and with their last sportive diamond-like tremble of light, up,
in all the suddenness of Australian day, rose the sun, lifting himself
royally above the mountain-tops, and fronting the meaner blaze of the