was scarcely perceptible; the colour came back to his cheeks; his bended
frame rose elastic and erect.

"If I understood you rightly," said I, "the experiment you ask me to aid
can be accomplished in a single night?"

"In a single night,--this night."

"Command me. Why not begin at once? What apparatus or chemical agencies
do you need?"

"Ah!" said Margrave, "formerly, how I was misled! Formerly, how my
conjectures blundered! I thought, when I asked you to give a month to the
experiment I wish to make, that I should need the subtlest skill of the
chemist. I then believed, with Van Helmont, that the principle of life is
a gas, and that the secret was but in the mode by which the gas might be
rightly administered. But now all that I need is contained in this
coffer, save one very simple material,--fuel sufficient for a steady fire
for six hours. I see even that is at hand, piled up in your outhouse.
And now for the substance itself,--to that you must guide me."

"Explain."

"Near this very spot is there not gold--in mines yet undiscovered?--and
gold of the purest metal?"

"There is. What then? Do you, with the alchemists, blend in one
discovery gold and life?"

"No. But it is only where the chemistry of earth or of man produces gold,