They contained colorless, volatile essences, of the nature of which I
shall only say that they were not poisons,--phosphor and ammonia
entered into some of them. There were also some very curious glass
tubes, and a small pointed rod of iron, with a large lump of
rock-crystal, and another of amber,--also a loadstone of great power.

In one of the drawers we found a miniature portrait set in gold, and
retaining the freshness of its colors most remarkably, considering the
length of time it had probably been there. The portrait was that of a
man who might be somewhat advanced in middle life, perhaps forty-seven
or forty-eight. It was a remarkable face,--a most impressive face. If
you could fancy some mighty serpent transformed into man, preserving
in the human lineaments the old serpent type, you would have a better
idea of that countenance than long descriptions can convey: the width
and flatness of frontal; the tapering elegance of contour disguising
the strength of the deadly jaw; the long, large, terrible eye,
glittering and green as the emerald,--and withal a certain ruthless
calm, as if from the consciousness of an immense power.

Mechanically I turned round the miniature to examine the back of it,
and on the back was engraved a pentacle; in the middle of the pentacle
a ladder, and the third step of the ladder was formed by the date
1765. Examining still more minutely, I detected a spring; this, on
being pressed, opened the back of the miniature as a lid. Within-side
the lid were engraved, "Marianna to thee. Be faithful in life and in
death to ----." Here follows a name that I will not mention, but it
was not unfamiliar to me. I had heard it spoken of by old men in my
childhood as the name borne by a dazzling charlatan who had made a
great sensation in London for a year or so, and had fled the country
on the charge of a double murder within his own house,--that of his