"And yet, why am I here?" pursued Auriol, looking around. "Ah! I see how it is," he added, with a shudder; "I have been mad--perhaps am mad still. That will account for the strange delusion under which I have laboured."
"I will act upon that hint," muttered the listener.
"Of what use is memory," continued Auriol musingly, "if things that are not, seem as if they were? If joys and sorrows which we have never endured are stamped upon the brain--if visions of scenes, and faces and events which we have never witnessed, never known, haunt us, as if they had once been familiar? But I am mad--mad!"
"How else, if I were not mad, could I have believed that I had swallowed the fabled elixir vitæ? And yet, is it a fable? for I am puzzled still. Methinks I am old--old--old--though I feel young, and look young. All this is madness. Yet how clear and distinct it seems! I can call to mind events in Charles the Second's time. Ha!--who told me of Charles the Second? How know I there was such a king? The reigning sovereign should be James, and yet I fancy it is George the Fourth. Oh! I am mad--clean mad!"
There was another pause, during which the listener indulged in a suppressed fit of laughter.
"Would I could look forth from this dungeon," pursued Auriol, again breaking silence, "and satisfy myself of the truth or falsehood of my doubts by a view of the external world, for I am so perplexed in mind, that if I were not distracted already, they would be enough to drive me so. What dismal, terrible fancies have possessed me, and weigh upon me still--the compact with Rougemont--ha!"
"Oh, that I could shake off the conviction that this were not so--that my soul, though heavily laden, might still be saved! Oh, that I dared to hope this!"
"I must interrupt him if he pursues this strain," said the listener.
[Illustration: Rougemont's device to perplex Auriol.]
"Whether my crimes are real or imaginary--whether I snatched the cup of immortality from my grandsire's dying lips--whether I signed a compact with the Fiend, and delivered him a victim on each tenth year--I cannot now know; but if it is so, I deeply, bitterly regret them, and would expiate my offences by a life of penance."
At this moment Rougemont, attired in a dress similar to that of the prisoner, marched up the steps, and cried, "What ho, Auriol!--Auriol Darcy!"