I administered the cordial. I placed food before him, and this time he did not eat with repugnance. I poured out wine, and he drank it sparingly, but with ready compliance, saying, "In perfect health, I looked upon wine as poison; now it is like a foretaste of the glorious elixir." After he had thus recruited himself, he seemed to acquire an energy that startlingly contrasted with his languor the day before; the effort of breathing was scarcely perceptible; the color came back to his cheeks; his bended frame rose elastic and erect. "If I understood you rightly," said I, "the experiment you ask me to aid can be accomplished in a single night?" "In a single night--this night." "Command me. Why not begin at once? What apparatus or chemical agencies do you need?" "Ah!" said Margrave. "Formerly, how I was misled! Formerly, how my conjectures blundered! I thought, when I asked you to give a month to the experiment I wish to make, that I should need the subtlest skill of the chemist. I then believed, with Van Helmont, that the principle of life is a gas, and that the secret was but in the mode by which the gas might be rightly administered. But now, all that I need is contained in this coffer, save one very simple material--fuel sufficient for a steady fire for six hours. I see even that is at hand, piled up in your outhouse. And now for the substance itself--to that you must guide me." "Explain." "Near this very spot is there not gold--in mines yet undiscovered-- and gold of the purest metal?" "There is. What then? Do you, with the alchemists, blend in one discovery, gold and life?"