From time to time the rumbling of the storm is still heard faintly in the distance. Sheet-lightning flickers above the mountain crests, painting everything white for an instant. The lightning, like the night, can only give one colour to this region--the one paints it white, the other black. The nightly shapes reach the churchyard by the secret path and dismount among the graves. Azrael places the reins of both horses in Oglan's jaws, and the shrewd beast remains sitting there on his haunches, holding both the snorting horses as firmly as if they were fastened to a stake. The Moorish horseman and the odalisk ascend a high funereal mound, the tombstone of which is barely visible through the dependent branches of a weeping willow. "Something more than a slave must rest beneath that stone," whispered Azrael to the quaking horseman; and placing her magic tripod on the tomb, she ignited with a phosphorous pellet the powdered ambergris and borax, which flickered up and cast a whitish glare all around the grave. There was a slight rustle in the distance. The Corsar's horse neighed uneasily. "What was that?" asked the Corsar. "The Jins," replied Azrael; "look not behind thee." With that she raised her magic staff, and pronounced in unintelligible words the exorcism over the grave. "Thou restless spirit, appear at my bidding. Wherever thou art, beneath the dark tree of Hell, or in the garden of the Houris; whether thou dost pine in chains of fire or dost recline on beds of roses, obey my voice, fly through the air, dissipate the darkness, and appear before me in the mortal shape thou didst wear on earth. Appear!" With these words she struck with her staff upon the stone slab, and immediately a lofty shape in a white winding-sheet rose up from behind the tomb. "Now advance three steps forward and speak to it," cried Azrael to the confounded Moor. With tottering footsteps Corsar Beg approached the shape, and cried with a hoarse, trembling voice-- "My name is Corsar Beg. Who then art thou, accursed spirit?" "I am Balassa," replied the shape with a sonorous voice; and casting aside the white winding-sheet, a powerfully-built, fair-complexioned man appeared with a drawn sword in his hand. "Corsar Beg, you are my prisoner," cried he to the Turk, who stood there in his bewilderment as if turned to stone. The next moment the Beg put his hand to his side, and not finding his sword there, rushed back with a howl of fury to his horse, threw himself like lightning into the saddle, and struck his sharp spurs into the flanks of his steed. But Oglan held the reins firmly between his teeth, and when the horse tried to start off, the panther planted his front paws firmly into the ground, and forced it back again.