The light came down a sort of short passage between rocks, with a well-trodden floor; and at the end of it, not twenty yards from where she stood, she could see the fairy grotto. One grand white carbuncle, as big as an arc lamp, hung from the roof, filling the grotto with dazzling white light; and the radiance of the carbuncle was flung back in a million points of new splendor from the walls of the grotto, shifting and shimmering like the rainbow across a waterfall, ruby and orange, yellow and emerald, sapphire and violet, changing as each new facet came into play; for the walls of the grotto were set thick with cut jewels of every hue and color. A glorious sight it looked; and Fiona suddenly became aware that the soft things that clutched at her dress and the soft things that whispered in her ear, were all trying to draw her toward the beautiful grotto. But she felt her feather, and it pointed straight on into the dark. So she moved forward; and with the first step she saw the trap. The floor of the beautiful grotto yawned wide, showing the horrible abyss beneath it; and the darkness was full of soft flutterings, and the chuckling of mocking laughter. But they touched her no more at the time; and suddenly the darkness fell away on each side like a wall, and she stepped out into daylight. She was in the desert. The yellow burning sand stretched all round her, a mass of glittering particles that made the eyes sore; wave after wave, it went billowing away to the red burning hills that faced and flung back the burning sun. Mile after mile she stumbled along in that aching heat; and then, as she topped a great hillock of sand, she suddenly saw the fairy city. Very beautiful it looked, rose-pink on a wooded island in a fair lake of water, whose blue mirror gave back every trembling cupola and minaret; and toward it, down a broad track marked by tamarisk bushes, went a goodly company of merchants, with tinkling bells on their camels' necks and golden ornaments on their camels' heads, the company of a chief who rode ahead on a white Arab steed with his long jezail laid across his saddle-bow. Here could no doubt be; and Fiona all but stepped on to the broad path in the track of the caravan. But even as she turned she caught sight of the feather and checked herself just in time; and the beautiful city of mirage melted away, and there was no caravan there, but only sand marked by the bones of men, and in place of the tamarisk bushes were gray vultures feasting in a row. She followed the feather straight on across the burning desert; and on a sudden she walked out of the sand into shade.