ance assassinated."

"Who are they?" asked the king.

"The last of the Valois and the first of the Bourbons," replied Lorenzo.
"But Cosmo shares my opinion. It is impossible to be an alchemist and a
Catholic, to have faith in the despotism of man over matter, and also in
the sovereignty of the divine."

"Cosmo to die a centenarian!" exclaimed the king, with his terrible
frown of the eyebrows.

"Yes, sire," replied Lorenzo, with authority; "and he will die peaceably
in his bed."

"If you have power to foresee the moment of your death, why are you
ignorant of the outcome of your researches?" asked the king.

Charles IX. smiled as he said this, looking triumphantly at Marie
Touchet. The brothers exchanged a rapid glance of satisfaction.

"He begins to be interested," thought they. "We are saved!"

"Our prognostics depend on the immediate relations which exist at the
time between man and Nature; but our purpose itself is to change those
relations entirely," replied Lorenzo.

The king was thoughtful.

"But, if you are certain of dying you are certain of defeat," he said,
at last.

"Like our predecessors," replied Lorenzo, raising his hand and letting
it fall again with an emphatic and solemn gesture, which presented
visibly the grandeur of his thought. "But your mind has bounded to the
confines of the matter, sire; we must return upon our steps. If you do
not know the ground on which our edifice is built, you may well think
it doomed to crumble with our lives, and so judge the Science cultivated
from century to century by the greatest among men, as the common herd
judge of it."

The king made a sign of assent.

"I think," continued Lorenzo, "that this earth belongs to man; he is
the master of it, and he can appropriate to his use all forces and all
substances. Man is not a creation issuing directly from the hand of God;
but the development of a principle sown broadcast into the infinite of
ether, from which millions of creatures are produced,--differing beings
in different worlds, because the conditions surrounding life are varied.
Yes, sire, the subtle element which we call _life_ takes its rise beyond
the visible worlds; creation divides that principle according to the
centres into which it flows; and all beings, even the lowest, share it,
taking so much as they can take of it at their own risk and peril. It is
for them to protect themselves from death,--the whole purpose of alchemy
lies there, sire. If ma