ed to operate as an antidote
against all other poisons. The physicians tried to suffocate the fiend
with tobacco smoke. He breathed it as freely as if it were his native
atmosphere. Again, they drugged their patient with opium and drenched
him with intoxicating liquors, hoping that the snake might thus be
reduced to stupor and perhaps be ejected from the stomach. They
succeeded in rendering Roderick insensible; but, placing their hands
upon his breast, they were inexpressibly horror stricken to feel the
monster wriggling, twining, and darting to and fro within his narrow
limits, evidently enlivened by the opium or alcohol, and incited to
unusual feats of activity. Thenceforth they gave up all attempts at
cure or palliation. The doomed sufferer submitted to his fate, resumed
his former loathsome affection for the bosom fiend, and spent whole
miserable days before a looking-glass, with his mouth wide open,
watching, in hope and horror, to catch a glimpse of the snake's head
far down within his throat. It is supposed that he succeeded; for the
attendants once heard a frenzied shout, and, rushing into the room,
found Roderick lifeless upon the floor.

He was kept but little longer under restraint. After minute
investigation, the medical directors of the asylum decided that his
mental disease did not amount to insanity, nor would warrant his
confinement, especially as its influence upon his spirits was
unfavorable, and might produce the evil which it was meant to remedy.
His eccentricities were doubtless great; he had habitually violated
many of the customs and prejudices of society; but the world was not,
without surer ground, entitled to treat him as a madman. On this
decision of such competent authority Roderick was released, and had
returned to his native city the very day before his encounter with
George Herkimer.

As soon as possible after learning these particulars the sculptor,
together with a sad and tremulous companion, sought Elliston at his own
house. It was a large, sombre edifice of wood, with pilasters and a
balcony, and was divided from one of the principal streets by a terrace
of three elevations, which was ascended by successive flights of stone
steps. Some immense old elms almost concealed the front of the mansion.
This spacious and once magnificent family residence was built by a
grandee of the race early in the past century, at which epoch, land
being of small comparative value, the garden and other gr