"Such is life!" replied the other, dreamily. "Oh, that my elixir were complete, and then all mankind might live for a thousand years--even as Artesius, the godlike Artesius, lived! A thousand learned doctors have withered up their brains searching for this elixir; but there is not one among to whom Heaven hath been so propitious as myself. Rejoice with me, lady, rejoice! for it is nearly complete! Having failed to discover an herb or mineral to finish it, I have plunged into the mazes of entomology; for there are many insects whose brains or bodies, wings or claws, possess charms of potency. Moses, Solomon, Hippocrates, and Aristotle found wondrous properties in locusts and creeping things; and Ælian, the Greek, expatiates at great length on those contained in the brains and tongues of crickets, wasps, and cantharides; and there were Democritus, Neoptolemus, Philistus, Nicander, Herodius, to say nothing of Albertus Magnus (whose book, printed at Venice in 1519, has just been sent to me by the Spanish ambassador), all of whose writings I have yet to search; and doubt not, lady, that therein I must discover that which shall complete my elixir, and make my poor little laboratory, at the hamlet of Silvermills, more famous by a thousand degrees, than ever was that of Claudius Galenus, the physician of Pergamus." And with this flourish, after reiterating his directions concerning that precious decoction, which he styled metheglin, to be taken with one karena from the phial, this homœopathist of the sixteenth century withdrew, leaving the poor little captive stupefied and stunned by the energy and fustian of his conversation. CHAPTER XLIII. DAVID'S TOWER--THE PRIEST. "There's but one part to play; shame has done here, But execution must close up the scene; And for that cause these sprigs are worn by all, Badges of marriage, now of funeral." ROWLEY'S _Noble Soldier_, 1634. As the physician retired, Father St. Bernard, Jane's confessor and daily visitor, and, of all the hundreds whom she knew, her only friend, glided softly in, and approached; for such was the terror excited by the accusations against her, that neither Marion Logan nor Alison Hume had dared to visit her; though they had sent many a message, saying, "how they wept and prayed for her," and so forth. She raised her heavy head, and with an expression almost of joy, extended her hands towards him; but the ponderous fetters weighed them down. The priest lifted the chain, and smiled sadly but kindly upon her. "_Pax Domine sit semper vobiscum_," said he, making use of his invariable phrase. "Good Father St. Bernard!" she exclaimed, "can this be the work of Heaven or of the fiend?" "Of the fiend, daughter--canst thou doubt it?" "I endure agony that is unutterable when thinking of Roland and of my mother. Oh, that she might hear nothing of all this! I have yet so much to suffer!----"