of again seeing that fatal man to whom you had consecrated
your devotion; but are you entirely sure that you would not have been
swallowed up with his fortune, in the shipwreck of Waterloo?

For five or six years past, it has not been your welfare nor even the
welfare of science, that prevented me from reanimating you, it has
been.... Forgive me, Colonel, it has been a cowardly attachment to life.
The disorder from which I am suffering, and which will soon carry me
off, is an aneurism of the heart; violent emotions are interdicted to
me. If I were myself to undertake the grand operation whose process I
have traced in a memorandum annexed to this instrument, I would, without
any doubt, succumb before finishing it; my death would be an untoward
accident which might trouble my assistants and cause your resuscitation
to fail.

Rest content! You will not have long to wait, and, moreover, what do you
lose by waiting? You do not grow old, you are always twenty-four years
of age; your children are growing up, you will be almost their
contemporary when you come to life again. You came to Liebenfeld poor,
you are now in my house poor, and my will makes you rich. That you may
be happy also, is my dearest wish.

I direct that, the day after my death, my nephew, Nicholas Meiser,
shall call together, by letter, the ten physicians most illustrious in
the kingdom of Prussia, that he shall read to them my will and the
annexed memorandum, and that he shall cause them to proceed without
delay, in my own laboratory, to the resuscitation of Colonel Fougas. The
expenses of travel, maintenance, etc., etc., shall be deducted from the
assets of my estate. The sum of two thousand thalers shall be devoted to
the publication of the glorious results of the experiment, in German,
French and Latin. A copy of this pamphlet shall be sent to each of the
learned societies then existing in Europe.

In the entirely unexpected event of the efforts of science being unable
to reanimate the Colonel, all my effects shall revert to Nicholas
Meiser, my sole surviving relative.

JOHN MEISER, M. D.

CHAPTER VIII.

HOW NICHOLAS MEISER, NEPHEW OF JOHN MEISER, EXECUTED HIS UNCLE'S WILL.

Doctor Hirtz of Berlin, who had copied this will himself, apologized
very politely for not having sent it sooner. Business had obliged him to
travel away from the Capital. In passing through Dantzic, he had given
himself the pleasure of visiting Herr Nicholas Meiser,