Gradually a thought began to dawn in his benighted soul, and with that thought the colour returned to his cheeks. Slowly he raised his head, and this secret thought ripening into a quick resolution, it was as though a voice within him cried--"Yes! Thither! thither!" His eyes began to sparkle, he turned his horse's head towards the forest, and disappeared beneath the thick foliage. * * * * * The tempest is raging. The storm snaps the trees. The rain patters down, and the swollen torrents roar. From time to time fitful lightning flashes illumine the whole region, and snowy mountain peaks grow dark and the black sky gleams white--and again the sky darkens and the snowy peaks shine forth. The scanty patches of brushwood clinging to the bald rocks are rudely torn and shaken by the hurricane, and the distant pine forests roar like the last trump. Every beast crouches trembling in its den and listens to the storm. Lofty, inaccessibly steep rocks shut out the horizon, and far, far down in the vale below, like a toiling ant, we see a horseman struggling through the pathless wilderness. God be merciful to him in such a night in such a place! It is the Devil's Garden! * * * * * A gorgeous oriental chamber opens out before us. Round about the walls gleam hundreds of torches; but the ceiling is so lofty that it is invisible, the light of the torches never reaches it. Two rows of columns support the gigantic architrave, slender columns with capitals in the shape of beasts' heads, as we are wont to see them in ancient Persian temples. Splendid curtains fill up the interstices of the columns. Moorish arabesques adorn the walls; the arched portals are ablaze with gold and malachite. In the centre of the room a lofty red velvet couch rests on four gold griffins with amethyst eyes. In front of the couch is a little ivory table, supported by intertwining silver snakes, and beside the table a golden censer exhales light-blue fragrant clouds of ambergris and aloes. On the couch reclines a sylph-like girl with languishing and yet ardent eyes. A string of pearls, dependent from her neck, draws her light tunic up to her bosom. Her slender form is girdled round the hips by a gorgeous oriental shawl. Her black locks are held together by a golden fillet, which encircles her brows, and the huge diamond clasp of this fillet flashes its myriad blinding rays amidst her dark tresses, like a rainbow condensed into a star gleaming through darkest night. The girl is alone. Everything around her is motionless. We seem to be in an enchanted fairy palace. Nowhere a sound, a movement. Who would ever have thought of finding such a magic chamber in the bowels of the earth, six hundred feet within the solid rock, on the surface of which the storm is worrying the hardy shrubs and trees? It is the crypt of the Devil's Garden, and the woman, sylph or demon, who inhabits it is Azrael.