There was a strange odour of chemicals in the place, and, as the doctor removed the cloth, it was to uncover, just as they had been left on the previous night, a powerful galvanic battery, syringes, and other surgical paraphernalia. For the next hour the doctor continued his labours, feeling more and more assured that he should triumph; and, as he toiled on, he talked rapidly to himself of the apparently complete arrest of decay, and the perfectly calm manner in which his subject lay, as it were, placidly waiting for the awakening which North felt, in his excitement, absolutely sure would come. "It is so near now that I have but to vitalise and obtain positive proof that, when carried to its full extent, I have performed what is almost a miracle, and proved that what I worked out in theory is possible in practice." He stood gazing down at the calm, cold face, with its closed eyes, hesitating, not from the horror that had half paralysed him before, but from dread lest, now he had gone so far that he could apply his final test, he should be disappointed. His head burned, his pulses throbbed heavily, and his hesitation increased. Rousing himself at last, he laid his hand upon the icy-cold forehead before him, the contact sending a chill through his frame; but he did not notice it. "Why do I stop?" he said. "It only wants this. I am alone, and no better opportunity could come. Oh, if I had but the aiding hand of that old _savant_, how easy it would be!" This brought back the scene in the theatre--the lecture, the applause; and his heart beat more rapidly in anticipation of his grand triumph when he could demonstrate this, the greatest surgical feat that had ever been performed. "And yet I hesitate," he exclaimed excitedly; "hesitate when I have but to plunge boldly to succeed." "And I will," he said firmly, after a pause. The scene which followed was weird and horrible, had there been an onlooker; to North it had all the fascination of an intense scientific experiment. For he had arrived at the pitch when, according to his theory, he had but to make the warm living blood pass from his own veins, as in a case of transfusion, to prove that his studies bore the fruit of success. The preliminaries were all arranged, and, with a sigh of satisfaction, North took a bright, keen lancet from its case, but only to let it fall back, starting violently, for he was, as it were, snatched back from his scientific dream by a faint rap upon the door of the great vault, and this was followed directly after by two more. North rapidly replaced the great sheet, and turned down the light before going softly to the entry. "Well?" he said harshly; "returned?" "Hist!" whispered the old sexton. "Out here!" He caught the doctor's hand and drew him out from the entry of the vault to stand within the iron railings. "Why have--" "Hist!" whispered the old man again. "Come with me."