feed the athanor. I see that you are still not fully convinced of
the excellency of fire, which is capable of ripening this mercury
and transforming it into the wonderful fruit I expect to gather very
soon. More wood! The fire, my son, is the superior element; I have
told you enough, and now I'll show you an example. On a very cold
day last winter, visiting Mosaide in his lodge, I found him sitting,
his feet on a warming pan. I observed that the subtle particles of
fire escaping from the pan had power enough to inflate and lift up
the folds of his gown, wherefrom I inferred, that had the fire been
hotter, it would have raised Mosaide himself into the air, of which
he is certainly worthy, and that, if it should be possible to close
into some kind of a vessel a very large quantity of such fire
particles, it would be possible to sail on the clouds as easily as
we sail on the sea, and to visit the Salamanders in their aerial
abodes, a problem I shall keep in mind. I do not despair of
constructing such a fireship. But let us go back to our work of
putting wood on the fire."

He kept me for some time in the glow of the laboratory whence I
wanted to escape as quickly as possible, to join Jahel, whom I was
anxious to inform of my misfortune. At last he left me, and I
thought myself free, a hope shortly to be disappointed by his
return.

"It is rather mild this morning," he said, "but the sky is somewhat
cloudy. Would it please you to go for a walk in the park with me
before returning to the translation of Zosimus the Panopolitan,
which will be a great honour to you and your tutor if you finish it
as you have begun?"