The boy gazed in silence; then he broke out:  “Ah, now we are in the palace...I see your Highness’s cabinet...no, it is the bedchamber...it is night...and I see your Highness lying asleep...very still...very still...your Highness wears the scapular received last Easter from his Holiness...It is very dark...Oh, now a light begins to shine...where does it come from?  Through the door?  No, there is no door on that side of the room...It shines through the wall at the foot of the bed...ah!  I see”—­his voice mounted to a cry—­“The old picture at the foot of the bed...the picture with the wicked people burning in it...has opened like a door...the light is shining through it...and now a lady steps out from the wall behind the picture...oh, so beautiful...she has yellow hair, as yellow as my mother’s...but longer...oh, much longer...she carries a rose in her hand...and there are white doves flying about her shoulders...she is naked, quite naked, poor lady! but she does not seem to mind...she seems to be laughing about it...and your Highness...”

The Duke started up violently.  “Enough—­enough!” he stammered.  “The fever is on the child...this agitation is...most pernicious...Cover the crystal, I say!”

He sank back, his forehead damp with perspiration.  In an instant the crystal had been removed, and Prince Ferrante carried back to his mother’s side.  The boy seemed in nowise affected by his father’s commotion.  His eyes burned with excitement, and he sat up eagerly, as though not to miss a detail of what was going forward.  Maria Clementina leaned over and clasped his hand, but he hardly noticed her.  “I want to see some more beautiful things!” he insisted.

The Duke sat speechless, a fallen heap in his chair, and the courtiers looked at each other, their faces shifting spectrally in the faint light, like phantom travellers waiting to be ferried across some mysterious river.  At length Heiligenstern advanced and with every mark of deference addressed himself to the Duke.

“Your Highness,” said he quietly, “need be under no apprehension as to the effect produced upon the prince.  The magic crystal, as your Highness is aware, is under the protection of the blessed spirits, and its revelations cannot harm those who are pure-minded enough to receive them.  But the chief purpose of this assemblage was to witness the communication of vital force to the prince, by means of the electrical current.  The crystal, by revealing its secrets to the prince, has testified to his perfect purity of mind, and thus declared him to be in a peculiarly fit state to receive what may be designated as the Sacrament of the new faith.”

A murmur ran through the room, but Heiligenstern continued without wavering:  “I mean thereby to describe that natural religion which, by instructing its adepts in the use of the hidden potencies of earth and air, testifies afresh to the power of the unseen Maker of the Universe.”

The murmur subsided, and the Duke, regaining his voice, said with an assumption of authority:  “Let the treatment begin.”