, 'that lead
one like me just new from the bed of death, and lapped even in health
amidst the roses of luxury, across such nocturnal paths as this; but
Passion and Vengeance treading to their goal can make an Elysium of a
Tartarus.' High, clear, and melancholy shone the moon above the road of
that dark wayfarer, glossing herself in every pool that lay before him,
and sleeping in shadow along the sloping mount. He saw before him the
same light that had guided the steps of his intended victims, but, no
longer contrasted by the blackened clouds, it shone less redly clear.

He paused, as at length he approached the mouth of the cavern, to
recover breath; and then, with his wonted collected and stately mien, he
crossed the unhallowed threshold.

The fox sprang up at the ingress of this newcomer, and by a long howl
announced another visitor to his mistress.

The witch had resumed her seat, and her aspect of gravelike and grim
repose. By her feet, upon a bed of dry weeds which half covered it, lay
the wounded snake; but the quick eye of the Egyptian caught its scales
glittering in the reflected light of the opposite fire, as it
writhed--now contracting, now lengthening, its folds, in pain and
unsated anger.

'Down, slave!' said the witch, as before, to the fox; and, as before,
the animal dropped to the ground--mute, but vigilant.

'Rise, servant of Nox and Erebus!' said Arbaces, commandingly; 'a
superior in thine art salutes thee! rise, and welcome him.'

At these words the hag turned her gaze upon the Egyptian's towering form
and dark features. She looked long and fixedly upon him, as he stood
before her in his Oriental robe, and folded arms, and steadfast and
haughty brow. 'Who art thou,' she said at last, 'that callest thyself
greater in art than the Saga of the Burning Fields, and the daughter of
the perished Etrurian race?'

'I am he,' answered Arbaces, 'from whom all cultivators of magic, from
north to south, from east to west, from the Ganges and the Nile to the
vales of Thessaly and the shores of the yellow Tiber, have stooped to
learn.'

'There is but one such man in these places,' answered the witch, 'whom
the men of the outer world, unknowing his loftier attributes and more
secret fame, call Arbaces the Egyptian: to us of a higher nature and
deeper knowledge, his rightful appellation is Hermes of the Burning
Girdle.'

'Look again, returned Arbaces: 'I am he.'

As he spoke he drew aside his robe, and r