“No, the tent. I saw you there when that fierce woman fell dead upon the earth!”
“It is complete,” he said, drawing himself up and lifting one hand to heaven, while the lightning glared upon him, “the Egyptian mysteries have lost nothing of their power,—that which was eternal in Papita lives still in Chaleco. Who shall prevail against one who holds a being like this in his grasp? The soul which she put to sleep I awake. Girl of the Caloe, stand up, let me see if the blood of our people is strong in your veins.”
I stood upright, planting my feet upon the floor firm as a rock. His words seemed to inspire me with wild vitality. As I looked him in the face quick gleams of lightning shot around us; my soul grew fierce and strong beneath the lurid flashes of his eyes; my own scintillated as with sparks of fire. He spoke.
“Speak—are you Caloe, or of the gentile? Base or brave? Speak the thought that is burning within you. Are you Aurora’s child or his?”
My form dilated, my bosom heaved, I felt the hot blood flashing up to my forehead.
“I am Zana, Aurora’s child,” I answered, with ineffable haughtiness. “The snow that drank her blood quenched the pale drops in my veins.”
“Come,” cried Chaleco, seizing my hand—“come and see the desolation which her rival left behind. You saw the wedding—your father’s wedding—come, now, and look at the home that was to receive the bride.”
He went to a fire-place that yawned in the chamber, and fell upon his knees. Directly I heard the clash as of flint and steel driven furiously against each other, and the empty fire-place was revealed by the storm of sparks that broke upon the sculptured stones. His wild impetuosity defeated itself; five or six times he crashed the metal in one hand against the flint which was clenched in the other. At last the fierce sparks centred in a volume, and with a flaming torch in one hand Chaleco stood up.
“You are pale,” he said, gazing sternly upon me. “Is this fear?”
“No,” I answered, subduing a thrill of awe, as the darkness which had so long enveloped me was driven back in shadows, that hung like funereal drapery in the angles and corners of the chamber—“no, I am not afraid. But that which has been revealed to me may well leave my face white.”