Page:The Monk, A Romance - Lewis (1796, 1st ed., Volume 2).djvu/281

 in vain to discover. A profound obscurity hovered through the void; damp vapours struck cold to the friar's heart, and he listened sadly to the blast while it howled along the lonely vaults. Here Matilda stopped. She turned to Ambrosio. His cheeks and lips were pale with apprehension. By a glance of mingled scorn and anger she reproved his pusillanimity, but she spoke not. She placed the lamp upon the ground near the basket. She motioned that Ambrosio should be silent, and began the mysterious rites. She drew a circle round him, another round himself; and then, taking a small phial from the basket, poured a few drops upon the ground before her. She bent over the place, muttered some indistinct sentences, and immediately a pale sulphurous flame arose from the ground. It increased by degrees, and at length spread its waves over the whole surface, the circles alone excepted in which stood Matilda and the monk. It then ascended the huge columns of unhewn stone, glided along the