The old man had not only not been shocked by these impious
maxims, but read them deliriously, and flattered himself with
thoughts of pride, whilst Pittonaccio kept close by him.

The marriage-contract was to be signed at midnight. Gerande,
almost unconscious, saw or heard nothing. The silence was only
broken by the old man's words, and the chuckling of Pittonaccio.

Eleven o'clock struck. Master Zacharius shuddered, and read in a
loud voice:--

"MAN SHOULD BE THE SLAVE OF SCIENCE, AND
SACRIFICE TO IT RELATIVES AND FAMILY."

"Yes!" he cried, "there is nothing but science in this world!"

The hands slipped over the face of the clock with the hiss of a
serpent, and the pendulum beat with accelerated strokes.

Master Zacharius no longer spoke. He had fallen to the floor, his
throat rattled, and from his oppressed bosom came only these
half-broken words: "Life--science!"

The scene had now two new witnesses, the hermit and Aubert.
Master Zacharius lay upon the floor; Gerande was praying beside
him, more dead than alive.

Of a sudden a dry, hard noise was heard, which preceded the
strike.

Master Zacharius sprang up.

"Midnight!" he cried.

The hermit stretched out his hand towards the old clock,--and
midnight did not sound.

Master Zacharius uttered a terrible cry, which must have been
heard in hell, when these words appeared:--

"WHO EVER SHALL ATTEMPT TO MAKE HIMSELF THE EQUAL OF GOD, SHALL
BE FOR EVER DAMNED!"

The old clock burst with a noise like thunder, and the spring,
escaping, leaped across the hall with a thousand fantastic
contortions; the old man rose, ran after it, trying in vain to
seize it, and exclaiming, "My soul,--my soul!"

The spring bounded before him, first on one side, then on the
other, and he could not reach it.

At last Pittonaccio seized it, and, uttering a horrible
blasphemy, ingulfed himself in the earth.

Master Zacharius fell backwards. He was dead.

[Illustration: He was dead.]

The old watchmaker was buried in the midst of the peaks of
Andernatt.

Then Aubert and Gerande returned to Geneva, and during the long
life which God accorded to them, they made it a duty to redeem by
prayer the soul of the castaway of science.

A DRAMA IN THE AIR.

In the month of September, 185--, I arrived at Frankfort-on-the-Maine.
My passage through the principal German cities had been brilliantly
marked by balloon ascents; but as yet no German had accompanied me in
my