for me, my heart was beating as audibly as a drum. With one hand I
grappled the collar of Pollexfen, and with the other held a cocked
pistol at his head.

He stood as motionless as a statue. Not a nerve trembled nor a tone
faltered, as he spoke these words: "I am most happy to see you,
gentlemen; especially the Doctor, for he can relieve me of the duties of
surgeon. You, sir, can assist him as nurse." And shaking off my hold as
though it had been a child's, he sprang into the laboratory adjoining,
and locked the door as quick as thought.

The insensibility of Lucile did not last long. Consciousness returned
gradually, and with it pain of the most intense description. Still she
maintained a rigidness of feature, and an intrepidity of soul that
excited both sorrow and admiration. "Poor child! poor child!" was all we
could utter, and even that spoken in whispers. Suddenly a noise in the
laboratory attracted attention. Rising I went close to the door.

"Two to one in measure; eight to one in weight; water, only water,"
soliloquized the photographer. Then silence, "Phosphorus; yellow in
color; burns in oxygen." Silence again.

"Good God!" cried I, "Doctor, he is analyzing her eye! The fiend is
actually performing his incantations!"

A moment elapsed. A sudden, sharp explosion; then a fall, as if a chair
had been upset, and----

"Carbon in combustion! Carbon in combustion!" in a wild, excited tone,
broke from the lips of Pollexfen, and the instant afterwards he stood at
the bedside of his pupil. "Lucile! Lucile! the secret is ours; ours
only!"

At the sound of his voice the girl lifted herself from her pillow,
whilst he proceeded: "Carbon in combustion; I saw it ere the light died
from the eyeball."

A smile lighted the pale face of the girl as she faintly responded,
"Regulus gave both eyes for his country; I have given but one for my
art."

Pressing both hands to my throbbing brow, I asked myself, "Can this be
real? Do I dream? If real, why do I not assassinate the fiend? Doctor,"
said I, "we must move Lucile. I will seek assistance."

"Not so," responded Pollexfen; the excitement of motion might bring on
erysipelas, or still worse, _tetanus_.

A motion from Lucile brought me to her bedside. Taking from beneath her
pillow a bank deposit-book, and placing it in my hands, she requested me
to hand it to Courtland the moment of his arrival, which she declared
would be the 20th, and desire him to read the billet att