Auriol | Page 5

of death just when they are opening to devour me! -- to be free from all accidents! -- 'tis a glorious thought! Ha! I bethink me, the rabbi said there was one peril against which the elixir could not guard me -- one vulnerable point; by which, like the heel of Achilles, death might reach me! What is it? -- where can it lie?"
And he relapsed into deep thought.
"This uncertainty will poison all my happiness," he continued; "I shall live in constant dread, as of an invisible enemy. But no matter! Perpetual life! -- perpetual youth! -- what more need be desired?"
"What more, indeed!" cried Auriol.
"Ha!" exclaimed the doctor, suddenly recollecting the wounded man, and concealing the phial beneath his gown.
"Your caution is vain, doctor," said Auriol. "I have heard what you have uttered. You fancy. you have discovered the elixir vitae."
"Fancy, I have discovered it!" cried Doctor Lamb. "The matter is past all doubt. I am the possessor of the wondrous secret, which the greatest philosophers of all ages have sought to discover -- the miraculous preservative of the body against decay."
"The man who brought me hither told me you were my kinsman," said Auriol. "Is it so?"
"It is," replied the doctor, "and you shall now learn the connect ion that subsists between us. Look at that ghastly relic," he added, pointing to the head protruding from the bag, "that was once my son Simon. His son's head is within the sack -- your father's head -- so that four generations are brought together,"
"Gracious Heaven!" exclaimed the young man, raising himself on his elbow. "You, then, are my great-grandsire. My father supposed you had died in his infancy. An old tale runs in the family that you were charged with sorcery, and fled to avoid the stake."
"It is true that I fled, and took the name I bear at present," replied the old man, "but I need scarcely say that the charge brought against me was false. I have devoted myself to abstrusest science; have held commune with the stars; and have wrested the most hidden secrets from Nature -- but that is all. Two crimes alone have stained my soul, but both, I trust, have been expiated by repentance."
"Were they deeds of blood?" asked Auriol.
"One was so," replied Darcy, with a shudder. "It was a cowardly and treacherous deed, aggravated by the basest ingratitude. Listen, and you shall hear how it chanced. A Roman rabbi, named Ben Lucca, skilled in Hermetic science, came to this city. His fame reached me, and I sought him out, offering myself as his disciple. For months, I remained with him in his laboratory working at the furnace, and poring over mystic lore. One night, he showed me that volume, and, pointing to a page within it, said: 'Those characters contain the secret of confecting the elixir of life. I now explain them to you; and afterwards we will proceed to the operation.' With this, he unfolded the mystery; but he bade me observe, that the menstruum was defective on one point. Wherefore, he said, 'there will still be peril from some hidden cause.' Oh, with what greediness I drank in his words! How I gazed at the mystic characters, as he explained their import! What visions floated before me of perpetual youth and enjoyment. At that moment a demon whispered in my ear, -- "This secret must be thine own. No one else must possess it'."
"Ha!" exclaimed Auriol, starting.
"The evil thought was no sooner conceived than acted upon," pursued Darcy. "Instantly drawing my poniard, I plunged it to the rabbi's heart. But mark what followed. His blood fell upon the book, and obliterated the characters; nor could I by any effort of memory recall the composition of the elixir."
"When did you regain the secret?" asked Auriol, curiously.
"Tonight," replied Darcy -- "within this hour. For nigh fifty years after that fatal night I have been making fruitless experiments. A film of blood has obscured my mental sight. I have proceeded by calcitration, solution, putrefaction -- have produced the oils which will fix crude mercury, and convert all bodies into sol and luna; but I have ever failed in fermenting the stone into the true elixir. Tonight, it came into my head to wash the blood-stained page containing the secret with a subtle liquid. I did so; and doubting the efficacy of the experiment, left it to work, while I went forth to breath the air at my window. My eyes were cast upwards, and I was struck with the malignant aspect of my star. How to reconcile this with the good fortune which has just befallen me, I know not -- but so it was. At this juncture, your rash, but pious attempt occurred. Having discovered our relationship, and enjoined the gatekeeper to