you."

"What about,--an experiment?"

"Yes, an experiment."

"Then I am at your service."

In a minute more, he had followed me into the desolate dead museum. I
looked round, but did not see Sir Philip.

CHAPTER XXXII.

MARGRAVE threw himself on a seat just under the great anaconda; I closed
and locked the door. When I had done so, my eye fell on the young man's
face, and I was surprised to see that it had lost its colour; that
it showed great anxiety, great distress; that his hands were visibly
trembling.

"What is this?" he said in feeble tones, and raising himself half from
his seat as if with great effort. "Help me up! come away! Something in
this room is hostile to me, hostile, overpowering! What can it be?"

"Truth and my presence," answered a stern, low voice; and Sir Philip
Derval, whose slight form the huge bulk of the dead elephant had before
obscured from my view, came suddenly out from the shadow into the full
rays of the lamps which lit up, as if for Man's revel, that mocking
catacomb for the playmates of Nature which he enslaves for his service
or slays for his sport. As Sir Philip spoke and advanced, Margrave sank
back into his seat, shrinking, collapsing, nerveless; terror the most
abject expressed in his staring eyes and parted lips. On the other hand,
the simple dignity of Sir Philip Derval's bearing, and the mild power of
his countenance, were alike inconceivably heightened. A change had come
over the whole man, the more impressive because wholly undefinable.

Halting opposite Margrave he uttered some words in a language unknown to
me, and stretched one hand over the young man's head. Margrave at once
became stiff and rigid, as if turned to stone. Sir Philip said to me,--

"Place one of those lamps on the floor,--there, by his feet."

I took down one of the coloured lamps from the mimic tree round which
the huge anaconda coiled its spires, and placed it as I was told.

"Take the seat opposite to him, and watch."

I obeyed.

Meanwhile, Sir Philip had drawn from his breast-pocket a small
steel casket, and I observed, as he opened it, that the interior was
subdivided into several compartments, each with its separate lid; from
one of these he took and sprinkled over the flame of the lamp a few
grains of a powder, colourless and sparkling as diamond dust. In a
second or so, a delicate perfume, wholly unfamiliar to my sense, rose
from the lamp.

"You would test the condition of tran