At length the flame quivers,--the air grows cold as the wind in charnels. A thing not of earth is present,--a mistlike, formless thing. It cowers in the distance,--a silent Horror! it rises; it creeps; it nears thee--dark in its mantle of dusky haze; and under its veil it looks on thee with its livid, malignant eyes,--the thing of malignant eyes! “Ha, young Chaldean! young in thy countless ages,--young as when, cold to pleasure and to beauty, thou stoodest on the old Firetower, and heardest the starry silence whisper to thee the last mystery that baffles Death,--fearest thou Death at length? Is thy knowledge but a circle that brings thee back whence thy wanderings began! Generations on generations have withered since we two met! Lo! thou beholdest me now!” “But I behold thee without fear! Though beneath thine eyes thousands have perished; though, where they burn, spring up the foul poisons of the human heart, and to those whom thou canst subject to thy will, thy presence glares in the dreams of the raving maniac, or blackens the dungeon of despairing crime, thou art not my vanquisher, but my slave!” “And as a slave will I serve thee! Command thy slave, O beautiful Chaldean! Hark, the wail of women!--hark, the sharp shriek of thy beloved one! Death is in thy palace! Adon-Ai comes not to thy call. Only where no cloud of the passion and the flesh veils the eye of the Serene Intelligence can the Sons of the Starbeam glide to man. But _I_ can aid thee!--hark!” And Zanoni heard distinctly in his heart, even at that distance from the chamber, the voice of Viola calling in delirium on her beloved one. “Oh, Viola, I can save thee not!” exclaimed the seer, passionately; “my love for thee has made me powerless!” “Not powerless; I can gift thee with the art to save her,--I can place healing in thy hand!” “For both?--child and mother,--for both?” “Both!” A convulsion shook the limbs of the seer,--a mighty struggle shook him as a child: the Humanity and the Hour conquered the repugnant spirit. “I yield! Mother and child--save both!” .... In the dark chamber lay Viola, in the sharpest agonies of travail; life seemed rending itself away in the groans and cries that spoke of pain in the midst of frenzy; and still, in groan and cry, she called on Zanoni, her beloved. The physician looked to the clock; on it beat: the Heart of Time,--regularly and slowly,--Heart that never sympathised with Life, and never flagged for Death! “The cries are fainter,” said the leech; “in ten minutes more all will be past.”