me what he has learnt. First he speaks by
displaying a deep rich blue signal, which he changes
then to purple, then to crimson, then to a brick-
red, which last he will continue to display
for hours. These words to the eye are
unmistakable. Other imps serve me, who are
not less sure detectives or less clever
denouncers of strychnia. The Potassium imp
called Ferrocyanide; Peroxide, the son of the
witch Manganese, or that other Peroxide, who
wears armour of lead, are all as clever as
Bichromate."

"But," I said, "your alchemy that lifts so
strong a hand of warning and denunciation against
crime, that is so far more wonderful and so
infinitely more useful than that you practised when,
at the age of 1025, O my Artephius, you wrote
your Secret Book, that alchemy has yet new
heights to scale. Of yonder vegetable extract
the sage Alipili has just whispered to me that a
tithe of a grain kills, and it is diffused in
a herb of which the last of our Medeas made
a deadly brandy for the comfort and solace
of those whom she slew as she nursed them
with a cruel mockery of kindness. It is true
that she has not escaped the sword of the
law."

"It is true, also," said Artephius, "that there
are poisons which, if their victim survives long
enough, may pass out of man's body before he
drops into the grave; there are also poisons that by
lapse of time decay within the grave and leave
no trace behind them. Declare not these to the
profane. But of this be assured, that whenever
men are wise enough to make prompt search
into the truth, there is no cunning that shall
master ours, neither can any poisoner be wise
enough to know with certainty how he shall
prevent the grave itself from yielding up his
secret, or the dead from being raised up by the
magic of a cave like this into the damning
witness of his crime before the face of all
the living."

With that thought in my heart I ascended out
of the cave and returned to my own home, where
I found, still lying open on the table, the same
Secret Book of Artephius in which I had been
reading. And as I sat down before it, and again
read in it, I thought how vain and puny were
the aspirations it records, how dead its wonders.
Surely Artephius, seven centuries ago, must
have been three thousand years younger than
Artephius, the alchemist of this decrepid old year
eighteen 'sixty-two. And it occurred to me, upon
consideration, as not strange that Artephius
now wears a hat and a black frock-coat; also,
it seemed well and right, as well as true, that
there should be an Artephius here, an Artephius
there, with a cave here, and a vault there, for
their alchemy; also, it occurred to me then,
that the Artephius whom I had visited did not
converse with "Ohs" and "thous," and antique
forms of phrase, but discussed marvels as great
as if he did, in the natural manner of a genial,
and by no means mouldy, Englishman. Neither
was his famulus, Alipili, robed in hieroglyphics,
and crowned with the seven planets in a Mother
Shipton hat.

But, what of that? Was the wonder of these
things less than if I had seen them among the
owls who frequent the ruins of another Babylon,
because the river I crossed in my journey, on a
dull November day, was our own Thames, crossed
dry-foot by the handsome aid of London-bridge
—because the dragons flew over me by help
of an arch spanning the road that goes down
by a great railway terminus towards a famous
place where the sick lie assembled, and the
busy doctors battle for their rescue from the
jaws of death? What if these be but modern
marvels, and this story of a visit to the Cave
of Artephius is discovered to be, after all,
only a bookworm's account of an hour with
DR. A. S. TAYLOR in the laboratory of GUY'S
HOSPITAL?

Now ready, price FOURPENCE,

SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE.

FORMING

THE EXTRA DOUBLE NUMBER
FOR CHRISTMAS.

CONTENTS: His Leaving it till called for. His Boots.
His Umbrella. His Black Bag. His Writing-Desk. His
Dressing-Case. His Brown-Paper Parcel. His Portmanteau.
His Hat-Box. His Wonderful End.

Early in January NO NAME will be completed; when
a New Story by the Authoress of "MARY BARTON" will be
commenced, entitled

A DARK NIGHT'S WORK.

This will be followed, in March, by a New Serial Work
of Fiction by

CHARLES READE, D.C.L.,

Author of "IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO MEND."

Just published, in Three Volumes, post 8vo,

NO NAME.

By WILKIE COLLINS.

SAMPSON LOW, SON, and Co., 47, Ludgate-hill.

** The author begs to announce that he has protected his right of
property (so far as the stage is concerned) in the work of his own
invention, by causing a dramatic adaptation of "No Name" to be written,
of which he is the sole proprietor, and which has been published and
entered at Stationers' Hall as the law directs.