"Most patient votary," he said, "I will lie
hidden no more from you behind that screen of
vellum. I am alive still, and I do decoct
continually. Behold, therefore, I bid you to my
cave!"

The phantom took me by the arm and led
me forth into yellow fog, through which, peopled
by dancing lights and dim uncertain shapes, he
guided me to the broad waters of a yellow
stream that I crossed dry-foot. But I had not
gone far upon the other bank before I reached
the home of the great fiery dragons, and passed
into a valley, where I heard them in the darkness
screaming overhead. Yet, so full was my
possession by the dream, if it were dream, that I
felt as one who had lived with dragons, and
walked fearless.

Ah me, sad shapes; ah me, sickness and
weariness! Do we approach the cave?

"These," said Artephius, "are the feeble of
this world who lie about my portal, watching
the uncertain flight of a great life-eater who
hovers over them. On some he pounces, others
he will leave. He would be scared from all if
those knights had their will."

For I saw also that there were brave knights
hurrying without pause hither and thither
among those who had been here thrown out to
the dragon, knights brandishing strange weapons
of bright steel, gallant knights pointing their
lances at the flying enemy, attacking him also
with powder and ball, so that not seldom this
hungriest of all the dragons flinched and fled. I
made obeisance to these noble warriors, and left
them gathered in a knot to hold their shields
over one prostrate child towards whom the
life-eater pounced, and against whom he darted
out his tongue most greedily.

"Day by day, year by year," said
Artephius, "generation by generation, century by
century, that dragon has been devouring
human life before the threshold of my cave.
Yet, thanks to these knights, fighting with
arms not seldom tempered by my art, he misses
meals."

Fragments of burning air added their radiance
to the dim light of day, as through a long closed
solitary way we came to a door opening on the
steps by which we should descend into the cave
itself. But about that door the mist suddenly
thickened, and threatening shapes gathered, that
I knew were shapes not of the living but of the
dead. They fought against us, and against each
other, with their unsubstantial arms; but as the
door opened a great light shone out of the cave,
in which they blackened and were burnt as by
consuming fire. The door was opened by the
great Sandovigius, who said in a loud voice as
we descended the steps, "Man contains
mysteries, which the philosophers in using the light
of nature see."

I saw the adept Sandovigius no more.

"But lift up your eyes," said Artephius.
"Who stands by yonder crucible? It is the
Arabian Alipili, that prince of adepts. Come,
now, and with his help let us search into
man."

So I went down with Artephius into the
cave.

There, as I stood on the stone floor, walled in
with retorts, crucibles, and secret many-coloured
essences of man and earth and things that grow
upon the earth, confined in crystal (for by such
mysteries the cave was lined, to the north and to
the south, and to the east and to the west), I
saw the storehouse of nature's miracles. Sol
and the body of Mercury were there, and
antimony, which contains within itself its own
vinegar, also the white earth and the sulphur
azurine; there, too, I saw Medea's broth, and
the indissoluble matrimony between Siccum and
Humidum, the Frigidity conquered by the
Calidity, and the white woman becoming the
Red Man. Among the wonders of that place
was a little mimic wilderness of sand, hot as
from the simoon confined below it, bath good for
the mystical rejuvenescence of the spirits that
will come when an Artephius calls. Again, I
saw also a furnace; again, tongues of fire on
strangely-covered tables. Upon one table a
tongue of fire shot forth beside a globe of frost;
and on another I saw iron eating air, while the
profound Alipili was measuring its mouthful.
As I stood among such wonders, I bowed
reverently before Artephius, who held a little
bottle in his hand, and said to me, "Let us now
look into man."

A heavy spirit of irreverence possessed me
then, and I answered,

"It seems to me, Artephius, that this bottle
contains a small portion of cocoa, in large brown
dry flakes. Do you propose making me at home
in your den with a cup of cocoa, boiled for us
in one of these your retorts?

"Cannibal," said Artephius, "do you
propose with mockery to make man-tea! This,"
and it rattled as he shook it, "this, fugacious
trifler, is part of the dried liver of a man, who
died in torment of Medea's broth five years
ago."

At these words my bones were to be heard
rattling within me, and I disappeared into the
recesses of my shoes.

"Come forth," said my guide; "fear nothing.
Come forth, or I will extract you chemically
from those shoes of yours."

"Pardon me, if I was precipitate," I said, as
I rose, "and show me the solution of this
matter."

"I was about to do so," said the alchemist.
"Here, in this bottle, is some of the dry liver
dissolved in London porter."

With a wry face I replied, "Artephius, I do
not ask for that solution; explain to me the
wonder of the liver that is dry and chinks."

"Why," said the sage, "when people's bowels
are brought to me— "

"By three and nine," said I, "and in the
name of the Concentrated Salt of Nature, is it
thus, O Artephius, that, like an old soothsayer,
you look into man?"

"I am a soothsayer, no doubt," answered
Artephius, "and am now old enough to know
that I can search into the remains of man