“There was no door visible, yet there was a door—indeed, many doors—very cunningly concealed in the wall; and now it opened with a clang of iron. Ouvery immediately commanded us to stand; and, bidding me, who was among the foremost, to follow him, he betook himself within. Obeying, I found myself in the strangest place I had ever known.” (Here there came a sound of tramping overhead, as if the men had been called to quarters. The Englishman took due notice, but did not break off in his relation.)
“It was a little cell, like the passage, hewed out of the rock, and about the size of a ship’s round-house. There was no furniture in it, save a table and a chair. Upon the table was a medley of things: scrolls of parchment scrawled over with hieroglyphics, triangles, and the like; books, pamphlets, maps, draughts, compasses, and I know not what besides. Beneath the table, in nooks and recesses contrived in the walls, were all manner of jars and phials, holding divers materials, both liquid and solid. Also globes, retorts, crucibles, alembics, mortars. At the farther end, beneath a brass clock, stood a large furnace.
“’Twas the chamber of a scholar, the cell of an alchemist; and in a great armchair at the table sat the man himself.
“He was a very ancient man, long and large of frame, but bowed and lean. He was dressed in a scarlet robe like a cardinal’s. His face, which was shaven bare, was fierce and forbidding, and heavy and ill-shapen in the lower parts; but his forehead was high and deep, and his hair fell in long venerable locks, white like snow. His eyes were large, but deep-sunk and dull. Yet, as I was soon to see, they could kindle in anger terribly, or become sharp and piercing like points of steel. And in the whole port and aspect of the man there was power; while thought brooded continually in the majestic wrinkles of his brow.
“He spoke at once, turning to Ouvery and clutching the sleeve of the man’s coat; and his voice was small and shrill like a woman’s.
“‘So,’ said he, ‘they are come, the pilgrim band, the little pilgrim band. You have brought them to labour with us in the vineyard—is’t not so, comrade? Thereafter they will join. ’Tis well. ’Tis very well. And my acid? You have brought my acid?’
“But at the words, I saw Ouvery start and turn deadly pale; and in a quavering voice he said:
“‘Doctor, forgive! I have forgot!’
“The hand that toyed with Ouvery’s sleeve closed on it like a vice; a spasm shook the ancient man, and left him rigid; the veins stood upon his forehead gathered in knots; his eyes started in their sockets.
“For many moments he looked on the man balefully, like a serpent. Then, uttering a frightful cry, he snatched up a globe of glass and cast it full at Ouvery’s head!