experiments. Old Galen had a hundred jealous rivals and they even said
he fed the dead slaves to the fish; but it was Roman custom to give no
man credit for humaneness if an unclean accusation could be made to
stick.

Another fat old slave led Sextus to a porch behind the house and through
that to a library extremely bare of furniture but lined with shelves on
which rolled manuscripts were stacked in tagged and numbered order;
they were dusty, as if Galen used them very little nowadays. There were
two doors in addition to the one that opened on the porch; the old
slave pointed to the smaller one and Sextus, stooping and turning
sidewise because of the narrowness between the posts, went down a step
and entered without knocking.

For a moment he could not see Galen, there was such confusion of shadow
and light. High shelves around the walls of a long, shed-like room were
crowded with retorts and phials. An enormous, dusty human skeleton,
articulated on concealed wire, moved as if annoyed by the intrusion.
There were many kinds of skulls of animals and men on brackets fastened
to the wall, and there were jars containing dead things soaked in
spirit. Some of the jars were enormous, having once held olive oil. On
a table down the midst were instruments, a scale for weighing chemicals,
some measures and a charcoal furnace with a blow-pipe; and across the
whole of one end of the room was a system of wooden pigeon-holes,
stacked with chemicals and herbs, for the most part wrapped in
parchment.

Sunlight streaming through narrow windows amid dust of drugs and spices
made a moving mystery; the room seemed under water. Galen, stooping
over a crucible with an unrolled parchment on the table within reach,