“Listen, Ibrahim, listen!” exclaimed Aldarin—“Hark! how the red drops fall pattering into the white waters!”
Ibrahim listened in horror, but dared not look. In a moment, the funeral urn, again enclosed the object of horror, and the voice of Aldarin broke whispering on the air.
“Ibrahim, brother of mine, haste thee to the altar—seize the microscopic glass and gaze upon the white waters of the alembic! I dare not—I dare not gaze upon the working of the charm!”
And as Ibrahim raised the glass to his eye, Aldarin stood with his back to the altar and his face to the wall, his wild eye glaring on vacancy while he counted the last seconds of the mystic age by the motion of his trembling fingers.
“The sands of the glass have fallen to within ten minutes of midnight,” exclaimed Ibrahim. “I gaze upon the white waters of the alembic! They spread before mine eyes in a calm and silver lake. The surface is crimsoned by waves of blood—the island of jet enlarges and widens!”
“Waves of blood—the island of jet widens!” shrieked Aldarin. “Two minutes of the ten are past! Oh, fiend of doom! can the charm prove false at last?”
“The waves of blood are dying away; the black substance diminishes in size!”
“Art sure, good Ibrahim? Gaze again upon the waters: do not, do not deceive me!”
“The waters are colored with a purple dye.”
“It hastens—it hastens! Ha—ha! So read the words of the book! Why dost pause, Ibrahim? Four minutes of the ten are past!”