Page:Captain of the Polestar.djvu/318

 304 Nile. I was brought up in the temple and was trained in all those mystic arts which are spoken of in your own Bible. I was an apt pupil. Before I was sixteen I had learned all which the wisest priest could teach me. From that time on I studied Nature's secrets for myself, and shared my knowledge with no man.

"Of all the questions which attracted me there were none over which I laboured so long as over those which concern themselves with the nature of life. I probed deeply into the vital principle.  The aim of medicine had been to drive away disease when it appeared.  It seemed to me that a method might be devised which should so fortify the body as to prevent weakness or death from ever taking hold of it.  It is useless that I should recount my researches.  You would scarce comprehend them if I did.  They were carried out partly upon animals, partly upon slaves, and partly on myself.  Suffice it that their result was to furnish me with a substance which, when injected into the blood, would endow the body with strength to resist the effects of time, of violence, or of disease.  It would not indeed confer immortality, but its potency would endure for many thousands of years.  I used it upon a cat, and afterwards drugged the creature with the most deadly poisons. That cat is alive in Lower Egypt at the present moment. There was nothing of mystery or magic in the matter. It was simply a chemical discovery, which may well be made again.

"Love of life runs high in the young. It seemed to me that I had broken away from all human care now