All around were scattered quaint and curious jars and retorts of coarse glass and metal. Rows of bottles of different shapes and sizes stood upon the shelves, and in the corner was a great heap of mouldering, dusty books, huge of size, and fastened with metal clasps. Built into the middle of the farther wall was a wide brick chimney-place, black with ancient soot, wherein were several furnaces of different sizes, all long since cold, and with the sparks of fiery life dead in their bosoms. Nevertheless, everything had been left as though the room had been newly deserted. One pot-bellied retort reclined tipsily upon its bed of cold gray ashes; a mortar stood upon the hob of another furnace with the pestle in it; a book, held open by a glass rod across the pages, lay near by, as though for reference. In the centre of the room stood a square pillar or table of stone, and upon it were two bottles containing a clear, limpid liquid, in appearance like distilled water. Each was stoppered with glass, and sealed besides with a great mass of blood-red wax. Upon each of the bottles was pasted a square parchment label. One was marked in red pigment, thus--[Symb 39]. The other was marked thus--[Symb 39] in black. Oliver knew that these were the bottles for which he had been sent. He hesitated a moment; then, reaching forth his hand, he took first one and then the other, and thrust them into his pocket. He had reached the ending of his task. Then of a sudden it was as though a wave of renewed life swept over him. He thought nothing of the greater dangers that must still await him above, at the mouth of the trap, though he had there read death in the master's eyes. He was unreasonably, unthinkingly elated; it was as though he had reached the ending of a long nightmare journey, and as though his face was turned towards the light again. It was with firmer and less fearful steps that he retraced his way through the dining-room and the room beyond, where lay that silent, grisly sleeper, and so came to the door-way with the blood-red line drawn around it. Then he stopped and looked up. At the square mouth of the shaft he saw the two faces still peering down at him, the face of Gaspard and the face of the master side by side. Again, and for the third time, the master asked him the question, "Have you found the bottles of water?" "Yes," said Oliver, "I have found them." "Then give them to me," said the other, in a ringing voice, and he reached his arm down towards Oliver where he still stood in the door-way, around which was drawn the blood-red line. In the reaction from the prostration of fear which had been upon Oliver for all this time, in the new elation which possessed him, it was as though he had come up from out of the dark waters which had overwhelmed him, and stood again upon the firm ground of courage. "Yes," said he, "very good, my dear American uncle, but wait a little; what then is to come of me if I give you these two bottles of water?"