prepared, into the
slop-bucket. "Go, sleep with your predecessors." After a moment's
silence, he again spoke: "But I know _it exists_. Nature has the secret
locked up securely, as she thinks, but I'll tear it from her. Doesn't
the eye see? Is not the retina impressible to the faintest gleam of
light? What telegraphs to my soul the colors of the rainbow? Nothing but
the eye, the human eye. And shall John Pollexfen be told, after he has
lived half a century, that the compacted humors of this little organ can
do more than his whole laboratory? By heaven! I'll wrest the secret from
the labyrinth of nature, or pluck my own eyes from their sockets."

Thus soliloquized John Pollexfen, a few days after the events narrated
in the last chapter.

He was seated at a table, in a darkened chamber, with a light burning,
though in the middle of the day, and his countenance bore an
unmistakable expression of disappointment, mingled with disgust, at the
failure of his last experiment. He was evidently in an ill-humor, and
seemed puzzled what to do next. Just then a light tap came at the door,
and in reply to an invitation to enter, the pale, delicate features of
Lucile Marmont appeared at the threshold.

"Oh! is it you, my child?" said the photographer, rising. "Let me see
your touches." After surveying the painted photographs a moment, he
broke out into a sort of artistic glee: "Beautiful! beautiful! an adept,
quite an adept! Who taught you? Come, have no secrets from me; I'm an
old man, and may be of service to you yet. What city artist gave you the
cue?"

Before relating any more of the conversation, it becomes necessary to
paint John Pollexfen as he was. Methinks I can see his tall, rawboned,
angular form before me, even now, as I write these lines. There he
stands, Scotch all over, from head to foot. It was whispered about in
early times--for really no one knew much about his previous career--that
John Pollexfen had been a famous sea captain; that he had sailed around
the world many times; had visited the coast of Africa under suspicious
circumstances, and finally found his way to California from the then
unpopular region of Australia. Without pausing to trace these rumors
further, it must be admitted that there was something in the appearance
of the man sufficiently repulsive, at first sight, to give them
currency. He had a large bushy head, profusely furnished with hair
almost brickdust in color, and growing down upon a broad