he drew the dog up to an apparatus which we know as a voltaic pile, he rounded off his words with his false and grating laugh. The pile was composed of a vessel containing strips of metal separated by felt. All were bathed in acidulated water; out of the cup came the two ends of wire—the poles to speak technically.
"Which eye shall it open, Acharat?" inquired the experimentalist.
"The right."
The two extremities were brought together, but parted by a little silk, on a neck muscle. In an instant the dog's right eye opened and stared at Balsamo, who could not help recoiling.
"Look out," said the infernal jester, with his dry laugh; "our dead dog is going to bite you!"
Indeed, the animal, in spite of its sundered spine, with gaping jaws and tremulous eye, suddenly got upon its four legs, and tottered on them. With his hair bristling, Balsamo receded to the door, uncertain whether to flee or remain.
"But we must not frighten you to death in trying to teach you," said Althotas, pushing back the cadaver and the machine; the contact broken, the carcass fell back into immovability.
"You see that we may arrive at the point I spoke of, my son, and prolong life since we can annul death?"
"Not so, for you have only obtained a semblance of life," objected Balsamo.
"In time, we shall make it real. The Roman poets—and they were esteemed prophets—assert that Cassidæus revived the dead."
"But one objection: supposing your elixir perfect and a dog given some, it would live on—until it fell into the hands of a dissector who would cut its throat."
"I thought you would take me there," chuckled the old wizard, clapping his hands.
"Your elixir will not prevent a chimney falling on a man, a bullet going clear through him, or a horse kicking his skull open?"
Althotas eyed the speaker like a fencer watching his antagonist make a lunge which lays him open to defeat.
"No, no, no, and you are a true logician. No, my dear Acharat, such accidents cannot be avoided; the wounds will still be made, but I can stop the vital spirit issuing by the hole. Look!"
Before the other could interfere he drove the lancet into his arm. The old man had so little blood that it was some time flowing to the cut; but when it came it was abundantly.
"Great God! you have hurt yourself!" cried the younger man.
"We must convince you."
Taking up a phial of colorless fluid, he poured a few drops on the wound; instantly the liquid congealed, or rather threw out fibres materializing, and, soon a plaster of a yellow hue covered in the gash and stanched the flow. Balsamo had never seen collodion, and he gazed in stupefaction at the old sage.
"You are the wisest of men, father!"
"At least if I have not dealt Death a death-blow, I have given him a thrust under which he will find it hard to rise. You see, my son, that the human frame has brittle bones—I will harden and yet supple them like steel. It has blood which, in flowing out, carries life with it—I will stop the flow. The skin and flesh are soft—I will tan them so that they will turn the edge of steel and blunt the points of spears, while bullets will flatten against it. Only let an Althotas live three hundred years. Well, give me what I want, and I shall live a thousand. Oh, my dear Acharat, all depends on you. Bring me the child."
"I will think it over, and do you likewise reflect."
The sage darted a look of withering scorn on his adept.
"Go!" he snarled, "I will convince you later. Besides, human blood is not so precious that I cannot use a substitute. Go, and let me seek—and I shall find. I have no need of you. Begone!"
Balsamo walked over to the elevator, and with a stamp of the foot, caused it to carry him down to the other floor. Mute, crushed by the genius of this wizard, he was forced to believe in impossible things by his doing them.
Chapter XLII.
The King's New Amour.
This same long night had been employed by Countess Dubarry in trying to mold the king's mind to a new policy according to her views.
Above all she had dwelt upon the necessity of not letting the Choiseul party win possession of the dauphiness. The king had answered carelessly that the princess was a girl and Choiseul an old statesman, so that there was no danger, since one only wanted to sport and the other to labor. Enchanted at what he thought a witticism, he cut short further dry talk.
But Jeanne did not stay stopped, for she fancied the royal lover was thinking of another.
He was fickle. His great pleasure was in making his lady-loves jealous, as long as they did not sulk too long or become too riotous in their jealous fits.
Jeanne Dubarry was jealous naturally, and from fear of a fall. Her position had cost her too much pains to conquer and was too far from the starting-point for her to tolerate rivals as Lady Pompadour had done.
Hence she wanted to know what was on the royal mind.
He answered by these memorable words, of which he did not mean a jot:
"I intend to make my daughter-in-law very happy and I am afraid that my son will not make her so."
"Why not, sire?"
"Because he looks at other women a good deal, and very seldom at her."
"If any but your majesty said that, I should disbelieve them, for the archduchess is sweetly pretty."
"She might be rounded out more; that Mademoiselle de Taverney is the same age and she has a finer figure. She is perfectly lovely."
Fire flashed in the favorite's eyes and warned the speaker of his blunder.
"Why, I wager that you were plump as Watteau's shepherdesses at sixteen," said he quickly, which adulation improved matters a little, but the mischief was done.
"Humph," said she, bridling up under the pleased smile, "is the young lady of the Taverney family so very, very fair?"
"I only noticed that she was not a bag of bones. You know I am short-sighted and the general outline alone strikes me. I saw that the new-comer from Austria was not plump, that is all."
"Yes, you must only see generally, for the Austrian is a stylish beauty, and the provincial lady a vulgar one."
"According to this, Jeanne, you would be the vulgar kind," said the monarch. "You are joking, I think."
"That is a compliment, but it is wrapped up in a compliment to another," thought the favorite, and aloud she said: "Faith, I should like the dauphiness to choose a bevy of beauties for maids of honor. A court of old tabbies is frightful."
"You are talking over one won to your side, for I was
