“Oh, yes! death would then be resurrection.”
“So, that with Elena at thy side,” continued the terrible personage, “thou wouldst ask nothing more?”
“Nothing.”
“Well, then, know all. In the Christian world this is not the second of September, 1724, as perhaps thou mayst imagine. Thou and I have been friends many more years.”
“Heavens! what do you tell me? In what year am I then?”
“The eighteenth century has passed, the nineteenth, twentieth and even more. To-day is the feast of San Antonio, the year 2316.”
“Then I am dead.”
“As thou hast been for nearly six hundred years.”
“And Elena?”