The shades of evening were now closing in.I remembered that I had left Margrave without even food for many hours.I stole round to the back of the house, filled a basket with elements more generous than those of the former day; extracted fresh drugs from my stores, and, thus laden, hurried back to the hut.I found Margrave in the room below, seated on his mysterious coffer, leaning his face on his hand.When I entered, he looked up, and said:
"You have neglected me.My strength is waning.Give me more of the cordial, for we have work before us tonight, and I need support."He took for granted my assent to his wild experiment; and he was right.
I administered the cordial.I placed food before him, and this time he did not eat with repugnance.I poured out wine, and he drank it sparingly, but with ready compliance, saying, "In perfect health, I looked upon wine as poison; now it is like a foretaste of the glorious elixir."After he had thus recruited himself, he seemed to acquire an energy that startlingly contrasted with his languor the day before; the effort of breathing was scarcely perceptible; the color came back to his cheeks; his bended frame rose elastic and erect.
"If I understood you rightly," said I, "the experiment you ask me to aid can be accomplished in a single night?""In a single night--this night."
"Command me.Why not begin at once? What apparatus or chemical agencies do you need?""Ah!" said Margrave."Formerly, how I was misled! Formerly, how my conjectures blundered! I thought, when I asked you to give a month to the experiment I wish to make, that I should need the subtlest skill of the chemist.I then believed, with Van Helmont, that the principle of life is a gas, and that the secret was but in the mode by which the gas might be rightly administered.But now, all that I need is contained in this coffer, save one very simple material--fuel sufficient for a steady fire for six hours.I see even that is at hand, piled up in your outhouse.And now for the substance itself--to that you must guide me.""Explain."
"Near this very spot is there not gold--in mines yet undiscovered--and gold of the purest metal?"
