The witch bowed her head.

‘Whatever art we possess in sorcery,’ continued Arbaces, ’we are sometimes driven to natural means to attain our object.  The ring and the crystal, and the ashes and the herbs, do not give unerring divinations; neither do the higher mysteries of the moon yield even the possessor of the girdle a dispensation from the necessity of employing ever and anon human measures for a human object.  Mark me, then:  thou art deeply skilled, methinks, in the secrets of the more deadly herbs; thou knowest those which arrest life, which burn and scorch the soul from out her citadel, or freeze the channels of young blood into that ice which no sun can melt.  Do I overrate thy skill?  Speak, and truly!’

’Mighty Hermes, such lore is, indeed, mine own.  Deign to look at these ghostly and corpse-like features; they have waned from the hues of life merely by watching over the rank herbs which simmer night and day in yon cauldron.’

The Egyptian moved his seat from so unblessed or so unhealthful a vicinity as the witch spoke.

‘It is well,’ said he; ’thou hast learned that maxim of all the deeper knowledge which saith, “Despise the body to make wise the mind.”  But to thy task.  There cometh to thee by to-morrow’s starlight a vain maiden, seeking of thine art a love-charm to fascinate from another the eyes that should utter but soft tales to her own:  instead of thy philtres, give the maiden one of thy most powerful poisons.  Let the lover breathe his vows to the Shades.’

The witch trembled from head to foot.

‘Oh pardon! pardon! dread master,’ said she, falteringly, ’but this I dare not.  The law in these cities is sharp and vigilant; they will seize, they will slay me.’

‘For what purpose, then, thy herbs and thy potions, vain Saga?’ said Arbaces, sneeringly.

The witch hid her loathsome face with her hands.

‘Oh! years ago,’ said she, in a voice unlike her usual tones, so plaintive was it, and so soft, ’I was not the thing that I am now.  I loved, I fancied myself beloved.’

‘And what connection hath thy love, witch, with my commands?’ said Arbaces, impetuously.

‘Patience,’ resumed the witch; ’patience, I implore.  I loved! another and less fair than I—­yes, by Nemesis! less fair—­allured from me my chosen.  I was of that dark Etrurian tribe to whom most of all were known the secrets of the gloomier magic.  My mother was herself a saga:  she shared the resentment of her child; from her hands I received the potion that was to restore me his love; and from her, also, the poison that was to destroy my rival.  Oh, crush me, dread walls! my trembling hands mistook the phials, my lover fell indeed at my feet; but dead! dead! dead!  Since then, what has been life to me I became suddenly old, I devoted myself to the sorceries of my race; still by an irresistible impulse I curse myself with an awful penance; still I seek the most noxious herbs; still I concoct the poisons; still I imagine that I am to give them to my hated rival; still I pour them into the phial; still I fancy that they shall blast her beauty to the dust; still I wake and see the quivering body, the foaming lips, the glazing eyes of my Aulus—­murdered, and by me!’