I next beheld the same cave in the mountains which I had before seen; and the beautiful couple together in it.  Then a shadow darkened the door of the cave; and the enchanter was there, asking admittance; cheerfully they bade him enter, and, as he came forward with his snake-like eyes fixed on the fair woman, I understood that he wished to have her for his own, and was even then devising how to bear her away.  And the spirit in the air beside him seemed busy suggesting schemes to this end.  Then this picture melted and became confused, giving place for but a brief moment to another, in which I saw the enchanter carrying the woman away in his arms, she struggling and lamenting, her long bright hair streaming behind her.  This scene passed from the wall as though a wind had swept over it, and there rose up in its place a picture, which impressed me with a more vivid sense of reality than all the rest.

It represented a market place, in the midst of which was a pile of faggots and a stake, such as were used formerly for the burning of heretics and witches.  The market place, round which were rows of seats as though for a concourse of spectators, yet appeared quite deserted.  I saw only three living beings present,—­the beautiful woman, the enchanter, and the evil spirit.  Nevertheless, I thought that the seats were really occupied by invisible tenants, for every now and then there seemed to be a stir in the atmosphere as of a great multitude; and I had, moreover, a strange sense of facing many witnesses.  The enchanter led the woman to the stake, fastened her there with iron chains, lit the faggots about her feet and withdrew to a short distance, where he stood with his arms folded, looking on as the flames rose about her.  I understood that she had refused his love, and that in his fury he had denounced her as a sorceress.  Then in the fire, above the pile, I saw the evil spirit poising itself like a fly, and rising and sinking and fluttering in the thick smoke.  While I wondered what this meant, the flames which had concealed the beautiful woman, parted in their midst, and disclosed a sight so horrible and unexpected as to thrill me from head to foot, and curdle my blood.  Chained to the stake there stood, not the fair woman I had seen there a moment before, but a hideous monster,—­a woman still, but a woman with three heads, and three bodies linked in one.  Each of her long arms ended, not in a hand, but in a claw like that of a bird of rapine.  Her hair resembled the locks of the classic Medusa, and her faces were inexpressibly loathsome.  She seemed, with all her dreadful heads and limbs, to writhe in the flames and yet not to be consumed by them.  She gathered them in to herself; her claws caught them and drew them down; her triple body appeared to suck the fire into itself, as though a blast drove it.  The sight appalled me.  I covered my face and dared look no more.