"Wagner!" he said, at length breaking silence, and speaking in a deep
sonorous voice, which reverberated even in that narrow dungeon like the
solemn tone of the organ echoing amidst cloistral roofs: "Wagner,
knowest thou who the being is that now addresseth thee?"

"I can conjecture," answered Fernand, boldly. "Thou art the Power of
Darkness."

"So men call me," returned the demon, with a scornful laugh, "Yes--I am
he whose delight it is to spread desolation over a fertile and beautiful
earth--he, whose eternal enmity against man is the fruitful source of so
much evil! But of all the disciples who have ever yet aided me in my
hostile designs on the human race, none was so serviceable as
Faust--that Count of Aurana, whose portrait thou hast so well
delineated, and which now graces the wall of thy late dwelling."

"Would that I had never known him!" ejaculated Wagner fervently.

"On the contrary," resumed the demon; "thou should'st be thankful that
in the wild wanderings of his latter years he stopped at thy humble
cottage in the Black Forest of Germany. Important to thee were the
results of that visit--and still more important may they become!"

"Explain thyself, fiend!" said Wagner, nothing dismayed.

"Thou wast tottering with age--hovering on the brink of the
tomb--suspended to a thread which the finger of a child might have
snapped," continued the demon; "and in one short hour thou wast restored
to youth, vigor, and beauty."

"And by how dreadful a penalty was that renovated existence purchased!"
exclaimed Wagner.

"Hast thou not been taught by experience that no human happiness can be
complete?--that worldly felicity must ever contain within itself some
element of misery and distress?" demanded the fiend. "Reflect--and be
just! Thou art once more young--and thy tenure of life will last until
that age at which thou would'st have perished, had no superhuman power
intervened to grant thee a new lease of existence! Nor is a long life
the only boon conferred upon thee hitherto. Boundless wealth is ever at
thy command; the floor of this dungeon would be strewed with gold, and
jewels, and precious stones, at thy bidding--as thou well knowest!
Moreover, thou wast ignorant--illiterate--uninformed: now all the
sources of knowledge--all the springs of learning--all the fountains of
science and art, are at thy disposal, and with whose waters thou canst
slake the thirst of thine intellect. Endowed with a youthfulness and