"What if it be poison you have now confected? Try a few drops of it on some animal."
"No--no; it is the true elixir," replied Darcy. "Not a drop must be wasted. You will witness its effect anon. Like the snake, I shall cast my slough, and come forth younger than I was at twenty."
"Meantime, I beseech you to render me some a.s.sistance," groaned Auriol, "or, while you are preparing for immortality, I shall expire before your eyes."
"Be not afraid," replied Darcy; "you shall take no harm. I will care for you presently; and I understand leechcraft so well, that I will answer for your speedy and perfect recovery."
"Drink, then, to it!" cried Auriol.
"I know not what stays my hand," said the old man, raising the phial; "but now that immortality is in my reach, I dare not grasp it."
"Give me the potion, then," cried Auriol.
"Not for worlds," rejoined Darcy, hugging the phial to his breast. "No; I will be young again--rich--happy. I will go forth into the world--I will bask in the smiles of beauty--I will feast, revel, sing--life shall be one perpetual round of enjoyment. Now for the trial--ha!" and, as he raised the potion towards his lips, a sudden pang shot across his heart.
"What is this?" he cried, staggering. "Can death a.s.sail me when I am just about to enter upon perpetual life? Help me, good grandson! Place the phial to my lips. Pour its contents down my throat--quick! quick!"
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Elixir of Long Life.]
"I am too weak to stir," groaned Auriol. "You have delayed it too long."
"Oh, heavens! we shall both perish," shrieked Darcy, vainly endeavouring to raise his palsied arm,--"perish with the blissful sh.o.r.e in view."
And he sank backwards, and would have fallen to the ground if he had not caught at the terrestrial sphere for support.
"Help me--help me!" he screamed, fixing a glance of unutterable anguish on his relative.
"It is worth the struggle," cried Auriol. And, by a great effort, he raised himself, and staggered towards the old man.
"Saved--saved!" shrieked Darcy. "Pour it down my throat. An instant, and all will be well."
"Think you I have done this for you?" cried Auriol, s.n.a.t.c.hing the potion; "no--no."
And, supporting himself against the furnace, he placed the phial to his lips, and eagerly drained its contents.
The old man seemed paralysed by the action, but kept his eye fixed upon the youth till he had drained the elixir to the last drop. He then uttered a piercing cry, threw up his arms, and fell heavily backwards.
Dead--dead!
Flashes of light pa.s.sed before Auriol"s eyes, and strange noises smote his ears. For a moment he was bewildered as with wine, and laughed and sang discordantly like a madman. Every object reeled and danced around him. The gla.s.s vessels and jars clashed their brittle sides together, yet remained uninjured; the furnace breathed forth flames and mephitic vapours; the spiral worm of the alembic became red hot, and seemed filled with molten lead; the pipe of the bolt-head ran blood; the sphere of the earth rolled along the floor, and rebounded from the wall as if impelled by a giant hand; the skeletons grinned and gibbered; so did the death"s-head on the table; so did the skulls against the chimney; the monstrous sea-fish belched forth fire and smoke; the bald, decapitated head opened its eyes, and fixed them, with a stony glare, on the young man; while the dead alchemist shook his hand menacingly at him.
Unable to bear these acc.u.mulated horrors, Auriol became, for a short s.p.a.ce, insensible. On recovering, all was still. The lights within the lamp had expired; but the bright moonlight, streaming through the window, fell upon the rigid features of the unfortunate alchemist, and on the cabalistic characters of the open volume beside him.
Eager to test the effect of the elixir, Auriol put his hand to his side.
All traces of the wound were gone; nor did he experience the slightest pain in any other part of his body. On the contrary, he seemed endowed with preternatural strength. His breast dilated with rapture, and he longed to expand his joy in active motion.
Striding over the body of his aged relative, he threw open the window.
As he did so, joyous peals burst from surrounding churches, announcing the arrival of the new year.
While listening to this clamour, Auriol gazed at the populous and picturesque city stretched out before him, and bathed in the moonlight.
"A hundred years hence," he thought, "and scarcely one soul of the thousands within those houses will be living, save myself. A hundred years after that, and their children"s children will be gone to the grave. But I shall live on--shall live through all changes--all customs--all time. What revelations I shall then have to make, if I should dare to disclose them!"
As he ruminated thus, the skeleton hanging near him was swayed by the wind, and its bony fingers came in contact with his cheek. A dread idea was suggested by the occurrence.
"There is one peril to be avoided," he thought; "ONE PERIL!--what is it?
Pshaw! I will think no more of it. It may never arise. I will be gone.
This place fevers me."
With this, he left the laboratory, and hastily descending the stairs, at the foot of which he found Flapdragon, pa.s.sed out of the house.
BOOK THE FIRST
_EBBA_
CHAPTER I
THE RUINED HOUSE IN THE VAUXHALL ROAD
Late one night, in the spring of 1830, two men issued from a low, obscurely situated public-house, near Millbank, and shaped their course apparently in the direction of Vauxhall Bridge. Avoiding the footpath near the river, they moved stealthily along the farther side of the road, where the open ground offered them an easy means of flight, in case such a course should be found expedient. So far as it could be discerned by the glimpses of the moon, which occasionally shone forth from a rack of heavy clouds, the appearance of these personages was not much in their favour. Haggard features, stamped deeply with the characters of crime and debauchery; fierce, restless eyes; beards of several days" growth; wild, unkempt heads of hair, formed their chief personal characteristics; while sordid and ragged clothes, shoes without soles, and old hats without crowns, const.i.tuted the sum of their apparel.
One of them was tall and gaunt, with large hands and feet; but despite his meagreness, he evidently possessed great strength: the other was considerably shorter, but broad-shouldered, bow-legged, long-armed, and altogether a most formidable ruffian. This fellow had high cheek-bones, a long aquiline nose, and a coa.r.s.e mouth and chin, in which the animal greatly predominated. He had a stubby red beard, with sandy hair, white brows and eyelashes. The countenance of the other was dark and repulsive, and covered with blotches, the result of habitual intemperance. His eyes had a leering and malignant look. A handkerchief spotted with blood, and tied across his brow, contrasted strongly with his matted black hair, and increased his natural appearance of ferocity.
The shorter ruffian carried a mallet upon his shoulder, and his companion concealed something beneath the breast of his coat, which afterwards proved to be a dark lantern.
Not a word pa.s.sed between them; but keeping a vigilant look-out, they trudged on with quick, shambling steps. A few sounds arose from the banks of the river, and there was now and then a plash in the water, or a distant cry, betokening some pa.s.sing craft; but generally all was profoundly still. The quaint, Dutch-looking structures on the opposite bank, the line of coal-barges and lighters moored to the strand, the great timber-yards and coal-yards, the brewhouses, gasworks, and waterworks, could only be imperfectly discerned; but the moonlight fell clear upon the ancient towers of Lambeth Palace, and on the neighbouring church. The same glimmer also ran like a silver belt across the stream, and revealed the great, stern, fortress-like pile of the Penitentiary--perhaps the most dismal-looking structure in the whole metropolis. The world of habitations beyond this melancholy prison was buried in darkness. The two men, however, thought nothing of these things, and saw nothing of them; but, on arriving within a couple of hundred yards of the bridge, suddenly, as if by previous concert, quitted the road, and, leaping a rail, ran across a field, and plunged into a hollow formed by a dried pit, where they came to a momentary halt.
"You ain"t a-been a-gammonin" me in this matter, Tinker?" observed the shorter individual. "The cove"s sure to come?"
"Why, you can"t expect me to answer for another as I can for myself, Sandman," replied the other; "but if his own word"s to be taken for it, he"s sartin to be there. I heerd him say, as plainly as I"m a speakin"
to you--"I"ll be here to-morrow night--at the same hour----""
"And that wos one o"clock?" said the Sandman.
"Thereabouts," replied the other.
"And who did he say that to?" demanded the Sandman.
"To hisself, I s"pose," answered the Tinker; "for, as I told you afore, I could see no one vith him."
"Do you think he"s one of our perfession?" inquired the Sandman.
"Bless you! no--that he ain"t," returned the Tinker. "He"s a reg"lar slap-up svell."