mes not,--the luminous and
delightsome Presence! Cabalist! are thy charms in vain? Has thy throne
vanished from the realms of space? Thou standest pale and trembling.
Pale trembler! not thus didst thou look when the things of glory
gathered at thy spell. Never to the pale trembler bow the things of
glory: the soul, and not the herbs, nor the silvery-azure flame, nor the
spells of the Cabala, commands the children of the air; and THY soul, by
Love and Death, is made sceptreless and discrowned!

At length the flame quivers,--the air grows cold as the wind in
charnels. A thing not of earth is present,--a mistlike, formless thing.
It cowers in the distance,--a silent Horror! it rises; it creeps; it
nears thee--dark in its mantle of dusky haze; and under its veil it
looks on thee with its livid, malignant eyes,--the thing of malignant
eyes!

"Ha, young Chaldean! young in thy countless ages,--young as when, cold
to pleasure and to beauty, thou stoodest on the old Firetower, and
heardest the starry silence whisper to thee the last mystery that
baffles Death,--fearest thou Death at length? Is thy knowledge but a
circle that brings thee back whence thy wanderings began! Generations on
generations have withered since we two met! Lo! thou beholdest me now!"

"But I behold thee without fear! Though beneath thine eyes thousands
have perished; though, where they burn, spring up the foul poisons of
the human heart, and to those whom thou canst subject to thy will, thy
presence glares in the dreams of the raving maniac, or blackens the
dungeon of despairing crime, thou art not my vanquisher, but my slave!"

"And as a slave will I serve thee! Command thy slave, O beautiful
Chaldean! Hark, the wail of women!--hark, the sharp shriek of thy
beloved one! Death is in thy palace! Adon-Ai comes not to thy call. Only
where no cloud of the passion and the flesh veils the eye of the Serene
Intelligence can the Sons of the Starbeam glide to man. But _I_ can aid
thee!--hark!" And Zanoni heard distinctly in his heart, even at that
distance from the chamber, the voice of Viola calling in delirium on her
beloved one.

"Oh, Viola, I can save thee not!" exclaimed the seer, passionately; "my
love for thee has made me powerless!"

"Not powerless; I can gift thee with the art to save her,--I can place
healing in thy hand!"

"For both?--child and mother,--for both?"

"Both!"

A convulsion shook the limbs of the seer,--a mighty struggle shook him