and more tamely in his
veins? He had not fared ill in his venture, he had made success certain.
And yet he was unreasonably, he was unaccountably, he was undefinably
depressed.

He grew more cheerful when he had had his supper and seated before a
half-flagon of wine gave the reins to his imagination. For the space of
a golden hour he held the _remedium_ in his grasp, he felt its
life-giving influence course through his frame, he tasted again of
health and strength and manhood, he saw before him years of success and
power and triumph! In comparison to it the bath of Pelias, though
endowed with the virtues which lying Medea attributed to it, had not
seemed more desirable, nor the elixir of life, nor the herb of Anticyra.
Nor was it until he had taken the magic draught once and twice and
thrice in fancy, and as often hugged himself on health renewed and life
restored that a thought, which had visited him at an earlier period of
the evening, recurred and little by little sobered him.

This was the reflection that he knew nothing of the quantity of the
potion which he must take, nothing of the time or of the manner of
taking it. Was it to be taken all at once, or in doses? Pure, or diluted
with wine, or with water, or with _aqua vitae_? At any hour, or at
midnight, or at a particular epoch of the moon's age, or when this or
that star was in the ascendant?

The question bulked larger as he considered it; for in life no trouble
is surmounted but another appears to confront us; nor is the most
perfect success of an imperfect world without its drawback. Now that he
held the elixir his, now that in fancy he had it in his grasp, the
problem of the mode and the quantity which had seemed trivial and
negligible a few days or hours before, grew to formidable dimensions;
nor could he of himself discover any solution of it. He had counted on
finding with the potion some scrap of writing, some memorandum, some
hieroglyphics at least, that, interpreted by such skill as he could
command, would give him the clue he sought. But if there was nothing, as
the girl asserted, not a line nor a sign, the matter could be resolved
in one way only. He must resort to pressure. With the potion and the man
in his possession, he must force the secret from Basterga; force it by
threats or promises or aught that would weigh with a man who lay
helpless and in a dungeon. It would not be difficult to get the truth in
that way: not at all difficult. It seeme