"And yet my countrymen are neither fools nor hypocrites," returned the alcaide; "but, like many other people, they deceive themselves, and talk about freedom till they fancy they possess it. Their great fault, however, has been, that they did not know where to stop; and as even virtue becomes vice when carried to the extreme, so have the most sublime principles of liberty and patriotism become degraded in their hands, by being attempted to be carried to an exaggerated degree of perfection!"
"Oh, England! England!" sighed the doctor; "would to Heaven I had never left thy happy shores! Alas! alas! what a crowd of horrible events have occupied the last few months!"
"Why did you leave your country, since you so bitterly regret it?" demanded the alcaide.
"Because we could not be contented," replied Edric. "Devoted from my earliest youth to the pursuits of science, I craved ardently for knowledge denied to mortals; I aspired to penetrate into the profoundest secrets of Nature, and burnt to accomplish wishes destined never to be realized. The desire of seeing foreign countries also filled my soul: I longed to travel, to acquire new ideas and meet with strange and wonderful adventures; I sickened of the quiet and tranquillity of home. 'Give me change,' cried I in my madness, 'give me variety, and I ask no more; for even wretchedness itself were better to bear than this tiresome unvarying uniformity.' The unreasonableness of my wishes deserved punishment, and I have been curst with the very fulfilment of my wishes."
"Is this gentleman also a votary of science?" asked the alcaide, who had appeared musing whilst Edric spoke.
"What a question!" exclaimed the doctor, in a transport of indignation. "What! has my whole life been devoted to scientific pursuits! have I deprived myself of rest and almost of food! and wasted the midnight lamp in bringing to perfection some of the most sublime discoveries ever vouchsafed to man, to be insulted suited with such a doubt as that? Know, sir, that you see before you Doctor Entwerfen, the fortunate inventor of the immortalizing snuff, one single pinch of which cures all diseases by the smell; the discoverer of the capability of caoutchouc being applied to aërial purposes; and the maker of the most compendious and powerful galvanic battery ever yet beheld by mortal!"
"Then you are the very man I want," said the alcaide; "go to prison contentedly, and rest satisfied that your confinement will be of very short duration. In a day or two I will see you, and explain the project I have conceived for your deliverance."
So saying, he summoned his guards, and, ordering them to convey the travellers to prison, the doctor and Edric were dragged away, and, being immured in separate dungeons, were left there to ruminate upon the varied and busy scenes in which they had been so lately engaged. Sadly and heavily passed the time; yet days and weeks rolled on ere they again saw the alcaide. At length, when they had begun almost to despair, they were reconducted to his presence.
"Do you understand the management of an electrical machine?" asked he abruptly.
"Certainly!" cried the doctor, transported with joy at the question, before Edric, who was half blinded by the sudden change from his gloomy prison to the broad light of day, had sufficiently recovered himself to reply.