room the strength of the aroma did not seem to increase, but at times it made me feel faint and giddy.
My fair companion noticed that I raised my hand once or twice to my forehead, and said in a slightly faltering tone that her father was in the habit of burning perfumes in the room—that she was accustomed to them—and that she trusted their traces did not annoy me.
I met her eyes as she spoke, for there was something in her tone that startled me. She looked steadfastly at me, but I did not like her expression. A feeling of distrust shot through me: but at this moment the Doctor entered the room.
He was cheerful and even gay and brilliant in his discourse, and his presence seemed to communicate a life and energy to our conversation. Once more he turned the discussion to his favourite subject of abstruse, mystical science. The very tones of his voice seemed to fascinate me, and I observed the countenance of his daughter brighten up as he spoke. She seemed the most interested of all, and kept her eyes fixed upon his face as if enthralled by his words. But when she spoke herself, she perfectly astounded me by her weird and fanciful ideas. I scarcely spoke, but was deeply interested in what they said. The air of the room still remained perfumed, and doubtless acted upon my brain, so that I listened to their wild flights of fancy into the region of conjecture with comparative calmness. I feel now that I could not have done so under ordinary circumstances.
An occurrence took place, however, which was sufficient to call me back to rationality. The room had become rather dark, and Doctor Walstein, after lighting the lamp, drew from his breast-pocket one of the small, carved, wooden cases which I had observed him using when he was working in the laboratory. He opened it and held it out for my inspection. There was an inner glass lid, and through this I could see that the case was filled with pink cotton-wool, in the midst of which was a tuft of delicate crystalline needles of a bright green colour.
“What is this, Doctor?” I inquired.
“You have no doubt observed, Mr. Haughton, that I am unusually elated this evening. I have cause to be so, for I have to-day not only completed the whole of the chemical preparations which were necessary for a great secret discovery that I am resolved to make, but I have also succeeded in producing a substance which I have been vainly attempting to arrive at for years. You see it in that case which you hold. It is the pure, essential principle of the poison of one of the most fatal snakes—the Cobra di Capello!”
“Good heavens! Doctor Walstein!” I exclaimed, putting the case far from me on the table, “all your practical chemistry seems to tend in the direction of poisons.”
“Young man, my aim—my object—my ambition is to fathom the deep secret of Life; to trace its origin, and to analyse its nature. I see in the future that I am destined to discover the wondrous Elixir of Life. I have already arrived at great results, but before I can go further I must penetrate far into the dark and mysterious secrets of Death. These deadly poisons which you seem to look upon with such loathing, are the stepping-stones by which I intend to arrive at the nature of Life itself.”
As he spoke these words his daughter smiled, and taking up the case in her hands, gazed fixedly on the bright green poison. As she continued to look at it, I observed that her eyes lost their strange light, and appeared even soft and gentle. She seemed absolutely to look upon the deadly crystals with love and tenderness, whilst I could not suppress a shudder of horror. My brain, too, was overburdened with the delicate, but subtle and oppressive odour which pervaded the chamber, and I rose to go. They both pressed me to stay, but seeing that I was most anxious to go, Miss Walstein bowed her farewell to me from the sofa, from which she had never risen, and the Doctor descended with me to the front door.
When I got into the open air I was almost unconscious for a second or two, but the cool air soon revived me, and I proceeded homewards. But whenever I allowed my recollection to dwell on the scene that I had left, I was seized with an uncontrollable feeling of terror. Notwithstanding the old man’s extraordinary knowledge and ability, and his daughter’s beauty and intelligence, my mind was filled with suspicion and distrust. Once more I made the resolution that my path and Doctor Walstein’s should be separate. I felt that our intercourse could tend to no good result, and again the unheeded warnings of my betrothed recalled themselves to my thoughts.
Ah! why had I ever ceased to remember them? As this self-reproach struck me I looked at the rose-bud in my breast, that had bloomed so freshly a few hours before. It was withered and dead!
MY TOADS.
“The toad,” observes an old and quaint writer, “is the most noble kind of frog, most venomous, and remarkable for courage and strength,” such qualities being evidently indicative of nobility in the mind of the narrator. So, among the Hindoos, the cobra is honoured as the creature of highest caste next to the Brahmin, and an old and very vicious Hoonuman is deeply respected as a very high caste monkey; and so, throughout all oriental nations, the surest road to respect is to insult their chiefs and thrash the people in general, giving no reason for either proceeding. In the present case, however, there are but little grounds for the respect which our author evidently entertained for the toad, as, after a long and somewhat intimate acquaintance with this batrachian, I have found his venom impotent, have never witnessed any display of his courage, and think his strength to be, bulk for bulk, inferior to that of a frog. Still, the toad is a respectable animal enough, and to those who will wisely discard the prejudice attached to its name, a very curious and interesting animal. Ever since I used to potter up and down our garden, a small six-year old naturalist, with magnifying glass always open in one hand, and an empty pill-box in the other, the
