Occupied with these reflections, I saw before me a fierce light covering one-half of the sky; the fog was reddened by it, and the light palpitated in the centre. A heavy smoke mixed with the vapours of the air. I at once became afraid that the fire had broken out at the d’Asterac castle. I quickened my steps, and very soon ascertained that my fears were but too well founded. I discovered the calvary of the Sablons, an opaque black on a background of flame, and I saw nearly all the windows of the castle flaring as for a sinister feast. The little green door was broken in. Shadows gesticulated in the park and murmured the horror they felt. They were the inhabitants of the borough of Neuilly, who had come for curiosity’s sake and to bring help. Some threw water from a fire engine on the burning edifice, making a fiery rain of sparks arise. A thick volume of smoke rose over the castle. A shower of sparks and of cinders fell round me, and I soon became aware that my garments and my hands were blackened. With much mortification I thought that all that burning dust in the air was the end of so many fine books and precious manuscripts, which were the joy of my dear master, the remains, perhaps, of Zosimus the Panopolitan, on which we had worked together during the noblest hours of my life. I had seen the Abbe Jerome Coignard die. Now, it was his soul, his sparkling and sweet soul, which I fancied reduced to ashes together with the queen of libraries. The wind strengthened the fire and the flames roared like voracious beasts. Questioning a man of Neuilly still blacker than myself, and wearing only his vest, I asked him if M. d’Asterac and his people had been saved. “Nobody,” he said, “has left the castle except an old Jew, who was seen running laden with packages in the direction of the swamps. He lived in the keeper’s cottage on the river, and was hated for his origin and for the crimes of which he was suspected. Children pursued him. And in running away he fell into the Seine. He was fished out when dead, pressing on his heart a cup and six golden plates. You can see him on the river bank in his yellow gown. With his eyes open he is horrible.” “Ah!” I replied, “his end is due to his crimes. But his death does not give me back the best of masters whom he slew. Tell me again; has nobody seen M. d’Asterac?” At the very moment when I put the question I heard near me one of the moving shadows cry out: “Thereof is falling in!” And now I recognised with unspeakable horror the great black form of M. d’Asterac running along the gutters. The alchemist shouted with a sounding voice: “I rise on wings of flame up to the seat of life divine!” So he said, and suddenly the roof fell in with a tremendous crash, and the flames as high as mountains enveloped the friend of the Salamanders. CHAPTER XXV I become a Bookseller--I have many learned and witty Customers but none to equal the Abbe Jerome Coignard, D. D., M. A.