from which his lips had been moistened.

"Wondrous!" he murmured: "how I feel life flowing back to me. And that,
then, is the elixir! it is no fable!"

His hands stretched greedily as to seize the phial, and he cried
imploringly, "More, more!" Haroun replaced the vessel in the folds of
his robe, and answered,--

"I will not renew thy youth, but I will release thee from bodily
suffering: I will leave the mind and the soul free from the pangs of
the flesh, to reconcile, if yet possible, their long war. My skill may
afford thee months yet for repentance; Seek, in that interval, to
atone for the evil of sixty years; apply thy wealth where it may most
compensate for injury done, most relieve the indigent, and most aid the
virtuous. Listen to thy remorse; humble thyself in prayer."

Grayle departed, sighing heavily and muttering to himself. The next day
Haroun summoned Sir Philip Derval, and said to him,--

"Depart to Damascus. In that city the Pestilence has appeared. Go
thither thou, to heal and to save. In this casket are stored the surest
antidotes to the poison of the plague. Of that essence, undiluted and
pure, which tempts to the undue prolongation of soul in the prison of
flesh, this casket contains not a drop. I curse not my friend with so
mournful a boon. Thou hast learned enough of my art to know by what
simples the health of the temperate is easily restored to its balance,
and their path to the grave smoothed from pain. Not more should Man
covet from Nature for the solace and weal of the body. Nobler gifts far
than aught for the body this casket contains. Herein are the essences
which quicken the life of those duplicate senses that lie dormant
and coiled in their chrysalis web, awaiting the wings of a future
development,--the senses by which we can see, though not with the eye,
and hear, but not by the ear. Herein are the links between Man's mind
and Nature's; herein are secrets more precious even than these,--those
extracts of light which enable the Soul to distinguish itself from the
Mind, and discriminate the spiritual life, not more from life carnal
than life intellectual. Where thou seest some noble intellect, studious
of Nature, intent upon Truth, yet ignoring the fact that all animal life
has a mind and Man alone on the earth ever asked, and has asked, from
the hour his step trod the earth, and his eye sought the Heaven, 'Have
I not a soul; can it perish?'--there, such aids to the soul, in the
innermos