Auriol | Page 4

Casting a furtive glance round the laboratory, and shrugging his
shoulders, Baldred departed; and Flapdragon having bathed the
sufferer's temples with the decoction, in obedience to his master's
injunctions, turned to inquire what he should do next.
"Be gone!" cried the doctor, so fiercely that the dwarf darted out of the
room, clapping the door after him.
Doctor Lamb then applied himself to his task with renewed ardour, and
in a few seconds became wholly insensible of the presence of a
stranger.
Revived by the stimulant, Auriol presently opened his eyes, and gazing
round the room, thought he must be dreaming, so strange and

fantastical did all appear. The floor was covered with the implements
used by the adept -- bolt-heads, crucibles, cucurbites, and retorts,
scattered about without any attempt at arrangement. In one corner was
a large terrestrial sphere; near it was an astrolabe; and near that a heap
of disused glass vessels. On the other side, lay a black,
mysterious-looking book, fastened with brazen clasps. Around it, were
a ram's horn, a pair of. forceps, a roll of parchment, a pestle and mortar,
and a large plate of copper, graven with the mysterious symbols of the
Isaical table. Near this was the leathern bag containing the two
decapitated heads, one of which had burst forth. On a table, at the
further end of the room, stood a large open volume, with parchment
leaves, covered with cabbalistical characters, referring to the names of
spirits. Near it were two parchment scrolls, written in letters,
respectively denominated by the Chaldaic sages, "the Malachim", and
"the Passing of the River". One of these scrolls was kept in its place by
a skull. An ancient and grotesque-looking brass lamp, with two
snake-headed burners, lighted the room. From the ceiling depended a
huge scaly sea-monster, with outspread fins, open jaws, garnished with
tremendous teeth, and great goggling eyes, Near it hung a celestial
sphere. The chimney-piece, which was curiously carved, and projected
far into the room, was laden with various implements of Hermetic
science. Above it were hung dried bats and flitter-mice, interspersed
with the skulls of birds and apes. Attached to the chimney-piece was a
horary, sculptured in stone, near which hung a large star-fish. The
fireplace was occupied by the furnace, in which, as has been stated, was
placed an alembic, communicating by means of a long serpentine pipe
with a receiver. Within the room were two skeletons, one of which,
placed behind a curtain in the deep embrasure of the window, where its
polished bones glistened in the white moonlight, had a horrible effect.
The other enjoyed more comfortable quarters near the chimney, its
fleshless feet dangling down in the smoke arising from the furnace.
Doctor Lamb, meanwhile, steadily pursued his task, though he ever and
anon paused, to fling certain roots and drugs upon the charcoal. As he
did this, various-coloured flames broke forth -- now blue, now green,
now blood-red.

Tinged by these fires, the different objects in the chamber seemed to
take other forms, and to become instinct with animation. The
gourd-shaped cucurbites were transformed into great bloated toads
bursting with venom; the long-necked bolt-heads became monstrous
serpents; the worm-like pipes turned into adders; the alembics looked
like plumed helmets; the characters on the Isaical table, and those on
the parchments, seemed traced in fire, and to be ever changing; the
sea-monster bellowed and roared, and, flapping his fins, tried to burst
from his hook; the skeletons wagged their jaws, and raised their
fleshless fingers in mockery, while blue lights burnt in their eyeless
sockets; the bellows became a prodigious bat fanning the fire with its
wings: and the old Alchemist assumed the appearance of the arch-fiend
presiding over a witches' sabbath.
Auriol's brain reeled, and he pressed his hand to his eyes, to exclude
these phantasms from his sight. But even thus they pursued him; and he
imagined he could hear the infernal riot going on around him.
Suddenly, he was roused by a loud joyful cry, and, uncovering his eyes,
he beheld Doctor Lamb pouring the contents of the matrass -- a bright,
transparent liquid -- into a small phial. Having carefully secured the
bottle with a glass stopper, the old man held it towards the light, and
gazed at it with rapture. "At length," he exclaimed aloud -- "at length,
the great work is achieved. With the birth of the century now expiring I
first saw light, and the draught I hold in my hand shall enable me to see
the opening of centuries and centuries to come. Composed of the lunar
stones, the solar stones, and the mercurial stones -- prepared according
to the instructions of the Rabbi Ben Lucca, namely, by the separation of
the pure from the impure, the volatilisation of the fixed, and