Page:Cerise, a tale of the last century (IA cerisetaleoflast00whytrich).pdf/72

 remember of their mysteries, so as to meet her on equal terms."

Bartoletti looked much relieved, and indeed gratified, when informed that this Obi-woman, instead of being a hideous old negress, was a fine-looking quadroon.

"Is that all you wanted?" said he, quite briskly; but his countenance fell once more on perceiving that the Abbé made no preparations for departure.

"Not quite," replied the latter. "I am hardly perfect yet in the nature of those essences we studied at my last lesson. Let us go over their powers and properties again."

The Signor turned a shade paler, but taking down some phials, and two or three papers of powders from a shelf, he did as he was bid, and proceeded systematically enough to explain their contents, gaining confidence, and even growing enthusiastic in his subject as he went on.

At the third packet the Abbé stopped him.

"It is harmless, you say, as a perfume when sprinkled in the form of a powder?"

The Signor nodded.

"But a deadly poison, mixed with three drops of St. Mark's balsam?"

"Right!" assented the Italian.

"And combined with any vegetable substance, its very odour would be dangerous and even fatal to animal life?"

"You are an apt pupil," said the other, not without approval, though he turned paler still. It took me seven weeks' close study, and a hundred experiments, to find that out."

"You worked with the glass mask on, of course," continued the Abbé; what would have been the effect had you inhaled the odour?"

"I should have come out in red spots at the first inspiration, turned black at the second, and at the third Monsieur l'Abbé should have been lost to the world, to science, and to you," was the conclusive reply.

"I am not quite satisfied yet," said Malletort. "I will take a packet home with me for further examination, if you please, and ten drops of St. Mark's balsam as well."

"It is worth a thousand francs a drop," observed the