mentum aere perennius;" there were various semi-possibilities
of minute dimensions and unpromising developments; there were shining
instruments of evil aspect, and grim plates on the walls, and on one
shelf by itself, accursed and apart, coiled in a long cylinder of
spirit, a huge crotalus, rough-scaled, flatheaded, variegated with dull
bands, one of which partially encircled the neck like a collar,--an
awful wretch to look upon, with murder written all over him in horrid
hieroglyphics. Mr. Bernard's look was riveted on this creature,--not
fascinated certainly, for its eyes looked like white beads, being
clouded by the action of the spirits in which it had been long
kept,--but fixed by some indefinite sense of the renewal of a previous
impression;--everybody knows the feeling, with its suggestion of some
past state of existence. There was a scrap of paper on the jar, with
something written on it. He was reaching up to read it when the Doctor
touched him lightly.

"Look here, Mr. Langdon!" he said, with a certain vivacity of manner, as
if wishing to call away his attention,--"this is my armory."

The Doctor threw open the door of a small cabinet, where were disposed
in artistic patterns various weapons of offence and defence,--for he was
a virtuoso in his way, and by the side of the implements of the art of
healing had pleased himself with displaying a collection of those other
instruments, the use of which renders the first necessary.

"See which of these weapons you would like best to carry about you,"
said the Doctor.

Mr. Bernard laughed, and looked at the Doctor as if he half doubted
whether he was in earnest.

"This looks dangerous enough," he said,--"for the man who carries it, at
least."

He took down one of the prohibited Spanish daggers or knives which a
traveller may, occasionally get hold of and smuggle out of the country.
The blade was broad, trowel-like, but the point drawn out several
inches, so as to look like a skewer.

"This must be a jealous bull-fighter's weapon," he said, and put it back
in its place.

Then he took down an ancient-looking broad-bladed dagger, with a complex
aspect about it, as if it had some kind of mechanism connected with it.

"Take care!" said the Doctor; "there is a trick to that dagger."

He took it and touched a spring. The dagger split suddenly into three
blades, as when one separates the forefinger and the ring-finger from
the middle one. The outside blades were s