Page:Braddon--The Trail of the Serpent.djvu/222

218 relinquishes his pipe to the Indian to be replenished, breaks the silence.

"So the great people of London, as well as of Paris, are beginning to believe in you, Laurent?" he says.

The student lifts his head from his work, and turning the blue spectacles towards the smoker, says in his old unimpassioned manner—

"How can they do otherwise, when I tell them the truth? These," he points to the pile of books and papers at his side, "do not err: they only want to be interpreted rightly. I may have been sometimes mistaken—I have never been deceived."

"You draw nice distinctions, Blurosset."

"Not at all. If I have made mistakes in the course of my career, it has been from my own ignorance, my own powerlessness to read these aright; not from any shortcoming in the things themselves. I tell you, they do not deceive."

"But will you ever read them aright? Will you ever fathom to the very bottom this dark gulf of forgotten science?"

"Yes, I am on the right road. I only pray to live long enough to reach the end."

"And then?"

"Then it will be within the compass of my own will to live for ever."

"Pshaw! The old story—the old delusion. How strange that the wisest on this earth should have been fooled by it!"

"Make sure that it is a delusion, before you say they were fooled by it, Captain."

"Well, my dear Blurosset, Heaven forbid that I should dispute with one so learned as you upon so obscure a subject. I am more at home holding a fort against the Indians than holding an argument against Albertus Magnus. You still, however, persist that this faithful Mujeebez here is in some manner or other linked with my destiny?"

"I do."

"And yet it is very singular! What can connect two men whose experiences in every way are so dissimilar?"

"I tell you again that he will be instrumental in confounding your enemies."

"You know who they are—or rather, who he is. I have but one."

"Not two, Captain?"

"Not two. No, Blurosset. There is but one on whom I would wreak a deep and deadly vengeance."

"And for the other?"

"Pity and forgiveness. Do not speak of that. There are some things which even now I am not strong enough to hear spoken of. That is one of them."