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In front of the Military School extends in time of peace the arena of war a field without a blade of grass, a piece of sandy steppe, as if cut out of the Desert of Africa, where Fata Morgana displays her wondrous airy castles and hanging gardens.
The magical loveliness of the scene, made lovelier by the intense silence of the hour, held them as with a binding spell, and Morgana, standing by one of the slender columns which not only supported the loggia but the whole Palazzo d'Oro as with the petrified stems of trees, made a figure completely in harmony with her surroundings.
Morgana had disappeared, and the knights, under the guidance of Orlando, retraced the path by which he had come. They soon reached the field of treasure. Rinaldo, finding himself amidst this mass of wealth, remembered his needy garrison of Montalban, and could not resist the temptation of seizing part of the booty.
And the Marchese's eyes glittered with sudden anger "He may claim YOUR discovery as his own?" Morgana smiled. She was ascending the steps of the loggia, and she paused a moment in the full glare of the Sicilian sunshine, her wonderful gold hair shining in it with the hue of a daffodil. "I think not!" she said "Though of course it depends on the use he makes of it.
If the day should ever come when, all barriers down, he, Maurice Guest, might be intimately associated with her life; if he should ever have the chance of proving to her what real love was, what a holy mystic thing, how far removed from a blind passing fancy; if he might serve her, be her slave, lay his hands under her feet, lead her up and on, all suffused in a sunset of tenderness: then, she would see that what she had believed to be love had been nothing but a FATA MORGANA, a mirage of the skies.
"And you will do it!" interrupted Morgana eagerly, "You will use your best skill and knowledge everything you wish shall be at your service name whatever fee your merit claims " He raised his hand with a deprecatory gesture. "Money does not count with me, Signora!" he said "Nor with you. The point with both of us in all our work is success! Is it not so? Yes!
Rivardi, letting himself go on the flood-tide of hope and ambition, pleased his mind with imaginary pictures of Morgana as his wife and as mother of his children, rehabilitating his fallen fortunes, restoring his once great house and building a fresh inheritance for its former renown.
"Horrid little stuffed things of wood and wax and saw-dust!" continued Morgana, emphatically "With great beads for eyes or eyes made to look like beads and red cheeks, and red lips with a silly smile on them!
Nothing of mortal flesh and blood shall hold you no love shall bind you, no hate shall wound you! the clue is given into your hand, the secret is disclosed and the spirits of air and fire and water have opened a door that you may enter in! Hark! I can hear their voices calling "Morgana! Morgana!"
He puffed two or three rings of smoke into the clear air. "You know where she's gone?" he asked, suddenly. "Morgana?" "Yes." Lydia Herbert hesitated. "I THINK I know," she replied at last "But I'm not sure." "Well, I'M sure" said Gwent "She's after the special quarry that has given her the slip, Roger Seaton. He went to California a month ago." "Then she's in California?" "Certain!" Mr.