In the centre of the grounds was a circle about sixty yards in diameter. Here the magician paused with his companions. “Your wish is a presumptuous one!” he said to Lucius Rutilius. “Only in rare cases does the goddess grant so insolent a desire. But you, I repeat, seem to be chosen as an object of her special favor. Hecate”--he folded his arms across his breast--“wills it, and will appear to you. Nay, she will even tolerate the presence of him who stands as a sympathizing friend by your side. But--I warn you! Remember Semele, who wished to behold Zeus in all his Olympian majesty and was consumed in anguish in his arms. True, death and destruction will not come to you from the sight of the Inscrutable One, for she appears of her own free will, not constrained by any oath binding upon the gods. But even thus the vision will confuse your mind and senses, stir your heart with dread and horror. Surrounded by scorching flames she will cross the starry sky, visible only to your eyes and mine, and overwhelming awe will stream from her shoulders like rain from a thunder-cloud. Never will you be able to efface this terrible spectacle from your memory. Therefore, do not brave the crushing vision too long! As soon as you have once beheld it, bow your head in reverence and hide your face with your trembling hands. No question to the Immortal One is needed. Her voice has already announced that your destiny is fixed; therefore she will come from the left, from the regions of the west; and flame across to the east. If her own favor and mercy could avert this fate--and she alone in rare cases can loose bonds the fettered one himself could rend by no sacrifice, no atonement--she would rise from the right like the sun and vanish towards the left. Now,--are you prepared?” “We are,” replied Rutilius. Olbasanus threw himself on the ground. Gently striking his forehead thrice against the hard trodden earth, he cried in a tone of despairing fervor: “Hecate, Princess of the Nether World, Mistress of all that has breath, show thyself to the eyes of this chosen youth, and, if it is possible for thee, rise from the regions of the east.” Suddenly a strange, ghostly rustling echoed on the air, a whirring like the distant sound of mighty wings. A blazing fiery glare flamed in the sky--but from the west. The apparition crossed the heavens with furious speed,--half concealed by the boughs of a row of lofty elms. “Hide your faces, unhappy men!” the Chaldean had shouted at the first ray of light, and in tones so sharp, so full of real terror, that Lucius Rutilius involuntarily obeyed. Even Caius Bononius had shrunk back and did not look up fairly and steadily until the fiery vision had already sunk far in the east behind the dark horizon. Lucius Rutilius, half fainting with excitement, was led away by Olbasanus and Caius Bononius. The Chaldean interrupted a question from the latter by the quiet remark: