Bernard was now sixty-two years of age, within a year of his grand climacteric. He had succeeded in divesting himself by degrees of all his property, with the exception of what afforded him a very bare subsistence; and his relatives, incensed at a conduct which their ignorance of science prevented them from appreciating, had turned their backs upon him. Poor, friendless, and alone, he had hatched his _Philosophers' Egg_ to some purpose; and now what was he to do? He must, in the first place, find some cheap retirement, where he could at least live; and accordingly he set out for a place he had visited in his travels--the island of Rhodes. Why he should have chosen the island of Rhodes more than any other island, or an island more than any part of the mainland, it would be difficult to tell. But Bernard speedily saw that he had been conducted thither by the hand of destiny; for in his solitary wanderings he encountered a monk whom he at once recognised as a kindred spirit. It would be too long to tell how they fell into talk about the Companions of Cadmus, the Doves of Diana, the Dragon, the Serpent, and the Nymphs; of the Male, the Female, and the Hermaphrodite; of the Hermetic Sulphur which exists in gold, and of the means of coagulating with this sulphur the sacred Mercury. Suffice it to say, that their conversation excited in them an intense desire to experiment, and an absolute conviction that the collision of two such intellects would strike out the sublime spark of truth. But how to manage? Gold could not be made without the aid of gold; and they had not a piece between them. But here the lucky stars of our philosopher interposed. Bernard fell in with a merchant to whom his family was known, and his adventures unknown; and the good man had the kindness to lend him 8000 florins. This was a trifling debt to incur at a time when he stood on the very brink of the Secret; and the two friends set to work with a will. They occupied themselves for three years in dissolving gold and silver; and then discovered that their fund was exhausted, and that nothing remained to them of all their labours but the embers of the fire.