ether in a Wedgwood mortar, and then with a
grain of a certain white powder. In pouring out
the mercury it grew black and clotted. This
obtained, the amalgam was subjected to the
blowpipe, and left a bead of fine white metal, which
remained fixed in a strong red heat. This bead
was pure silver. The applause was tremendous.

Five drachms of mercury were then taken and
rubbed up with ether and a quarter of a grain
of red powder, and the mercury being driven
from it by the blowpipe, left a bead of yellow
metal, which proved to be pure gold, which
resisted aquafortis or the touchstone. A small
quantity dissolved in aqua regia produced a
purple precipitate in a solution of tin, and in
one of green vitriol a brownish precipitate.
The cheers were redoubled. The peers grew
quite red and fatigued with applauding with two
fingers—and standing over the fire.

The final experiment was still more curious,
valuable, and convincing. In all these
experiments it was delightful to see the deep interest
the stranger took in everything, and the calm
candour of the dean, and his anxiety that the
company should inspect his apparatus.

He now placed half an ounce of mercury in a
small Hersian crucible, on a flux of borax, a piece
of charcoal, and a piece of nitre. These, being
first handed round, were pounded in a mortar,
and then pressed down into the crucible, and on
this flux was placed half a grain of a certain
deep red powder. The crucible was then placed
on the fire; but the mercury showed no signs of
evaporation or even of boiling. In a small dip
taken with a clean iron rod, and in the scoriae,
when knocked off, were found whitish globules.
After keeping the crucible in a strong red-white
heat for twenty minutes, it was carefully taken
out and gradually cooled; on breaking it, a
globule of yellow metal, weighing nearly three
grains, was formed at the bottom. This metal
was placed in a sealed phial to be assayed,
being evidently, however, in the opinion of all,
pure gold.

Every one was in raptures. The peers shook
hands with the dean. The clergy chuckled and
rubbed their hands. All that Newton and Bacon
had done and thought did not approach the
material grandeur of the dean's discovery.

"The world," said one enthusiastic canon,
"will soon be ringing with your name."

"It will, indeed," said the stranger, in his
dry hard way; and turned rather abruptly to
beg the dean to give them some statement of his
alchemic theories.

The dean at once plunged into all the wildest
dreams and rhapsodies of Paracelsus. He
explained that the words "mercury" and
"sulphur," so common in the writings of that strange
fanatic, were merely cyphers to express the
hidden qualities of certain bodies. All his
discoveries pointed to some universal base, the
existence of which his recent experiments went to
prove. By the red man and white woman,
Paracelsus meant sulphur and mercury; by chasing
the red dragon, he meant seeking the philosopher's
stone. The white lily and the swan were
only other words for mercury. By the hatching
of the basilisk he merely meant the production
of a certain subtle poison, known only to
alchemists, the very smell of which would
destroy life.

"Gracious!" said the brother peers, their
gooseberry eyes growing rounder and paler than
ever.

The stranger, drier and colder than before, was
now taking notes, apparently of the experiments
he had seen. When he looked up, it was to ask
in what degree of heat the transmutation
generally took place.

The dean was apparently rather too elated
with his triumph to satisfy the purposeless
curiosity of an unknown stranger. He
answered rather oracularly and from the clouds,
and with a slight tinge of contempt in his
manner for less successful seekers of the great
secrets of science:

"Your question," he said, "my dear sir,
is a wide one. Fire itself is a mystery, and is a
mere generic name for a thousand stages of
the combustion of the universal sulphur."

It was a familiar feature of the two peers that
the more incoherent and mysterious the oracle
was, the more they seemed to admire his
utterances. So this time, being completely in the
dark, they stared, simpered at each other, and
repeated the dean's words:

"Universal sulphur!"

"There is the saffron fire, the ashen grey, the
crimson, and the azure, each with its own,
properties, powers, and influences. Now just as
the Arabian sun will not ripen the apple, or the
Irish sun the palm fruit, so will the azure
fire not perform the part of the saffron."

"These are great secrets, indeed," said the
stranger, turning his eyes devoutly up to
heaven

"Fire is a living thing with an organisation
of its own," continued the dean; "only when
you cease to feed it does it die. The fire which
I use for transmutation is the lion's rage, the
most quenchless of all fires, the white fire, the
royal fire that is used at iron foundries."

"The Royal Society should know of these
extraordinary discoveries which have at last
blessed our age," said the stranger, warming
up suddenly to quite an enthusiasm. "That great
society watches all sciences and rewards all real
discoverers. Its approbation is a European
guarantee. Already his majesty has approved
and honoured you; you now need only the Royal
Society to place its seal on your almost
miraculous experiments."

The stranger uttered this glowing exhortation
in an elevated yet mechanical voice, but
his cold, steely eyes did not warm up or
brighten with a smile, and he kept them fixed
on the dean's face, which had now assumed its
old pale and careworn expression.

"You are very kind," he said, "very kind;
but I shall not repeat my experiments before so
sceptical and worldly a body of men as the Royal
Society. I do not claim any great secret. I
merely show men facts; I leave them to draw