The chief of the Cascades is coming, and with him is Benjamin and his young bride, and Gretchen.
The royal party mount the platform, and in honor of the event the torch-dance begins.

A single torch flashes upon the air; another is lighted from it, another and another.

A hundred are lighted--a thousand.
They begin to dance and to whirl; the plateau is a dazzling scene of circling fire.

Gretchen recalled the old _fetes_ amid the vineyards of the Rhine in her childhood.
Hither and thither the circles move--round and round.

There is poetry in this fire-motion; and the great army of fire-dancers become excited under it, and prepared for the frenzy of the Spirit-dance that is to follow.
The torches go out.