The Saving of Karl Reichenberg.
By Arthur Page.
"Suddenly a hand was laid upon his shoulder."
HE streets of Seville were almost deserted; here and there a solitary human being
hurried as fast as the heat would allow to his home, for the sultry air of the evening gave warning of the approach of a storm. Only Dr. Karl Reichenberg felt neither the loneliness of the streets, nor the hush before the tempest; his wild eyes gleamed with excitement, and his steps were now hurried, now slow and uncertain.
Science is to her children as the apple of their eye, and they pursue her even when she hides herself and baffles their long researches. But science has her rewards also, and Dr. Karl had seen a great reality growing out of the deep obscurity in which he had groped so long. He who had toiled through sleepless nights, burning the midnight oil, earning from his neighbours the name of wizard, had triumphed at last, he had made a glorious discovery, and had seen the Unseen. Wherefore his heart was glad within him, his brain was mad with a whirling ecstasy of joy, his limbs trembled, and his feet could scarce bear him. Was not he, the poor German Jew, a stranger in the tents of the proud Spaniard, who despised him or else feared, was not he now exalted and his name great among the nations?
Suddenly a hand was laid upon his shoulder, and a deep sepulchral voice uttered these words, "The Holy Mother Church hath need of thee!" Turning, he saw two sinister figures clothed in sombre-hued robes which, reaching down to the ground, rose to a point above the head, entirely concealing form and face, except for
