He took a second pair of glasses from his pocket and put them on over the first, and read:
“ ‘Written this day, the 12th of July, 1721 …’ ”
“Two centuries!” gasped the notary and began again:
“ ‘Written this day, the 12th of July, 1721, the last day of my existence, to be read the 12th of July, 1921, the first day of my resurrection.’ ”
The notary stopped short. The young people looked at one another with an air of stupefaction.
Archibald Webster, of Philadelphia, observed:
“This gentleman was mad.”
“The word resurrection is perhaps used in a symbolic sense,” said Maître Delarue. “We shall learn from what follows: I will continue:
“ ‘My children’. …”
He stopped again and said:
“ ‘My children’. … He is addressing you.”
“For goodness sake, Maître Delarue, do not stop again, I beg you!” exclaimed Dorothy. “All this is thrilling.”
“Nevertheless. …”
“No, Maître Delarue, comment is useless. We’re eager to know, aren’t we, comrades?”
The four young men supported her vehemently.
Thereupon the notary resumed his reading, with the hesitation and repetitions imposed by the difficulties of the text:
“ ‘My children,
“ ‘On leaving a meeting of the Academy of the sciences of Paris, to which Monsieur de Fontenelle had had the goodness to invite me, the illustrious author of the Discourses on the Plurality of Worlds, seized me by the arm and said:
“ ‘Marquis, would you mind enlightening me on a point about which, it seems, you maintain a shrinking reserve? How did you get that wound on your left hand, get your fourth finger cut off at the very root? The story goes that you left that finger at the bottom of one of your retorts, for you have the reputation, Marquis, of being something of an alchemist, and of seeking, inside the walls of your Château of Roche-Périac, the elixir of life.’
“ ‘I do not seek it, Monsieur de Fontenelle,’ I answered, ‘I possess it.’
“ ‘Truly?’
“ ‘Truly, Monsieur de Fontenelle, and if you will permit me to put you in possession of a small phial, the pitiless Fate will certainly have to wait till your hundredth year.’
“ ‘I accept with the greatest pleasure,’ he said, laughing—‘on condition that you keep me company. We are of the same age—which gives us another forty good years to live.’
“ ‘For my part, Monsieur de Fontenelle, to live longer does not greatly appeal to me. What is the good of sticking stubbornly to a world in which no new spectacle can surprise and in which the day that is coming will be the same as the day that is done. What I wish to do is to come to life again, to come to life again in a century or two, to make the acquaintance of my grandchildren’s children, and see what men have done since our time. There will be great changes here below, in the government of empires as well as in everyday life. I shall learn about them.’
“ ‘Bravo, Marquis!’ exclaimed Monsieur de Fontenelle, who seemed more and more amused. ‘Bravo! It is another elixir which will give you this marvelous power.’
“ ‘Another,’ I asserted. ‘I brought it back with me from India, where, as you know, I spent ten years of my youth, becoming the friend of the priests of that marvelous country, from which every revelation and every religion came to us. They initiated me into some of their chief mysteries.’
“ ‘Why not into all?’ asked Monsieur de Fontenelle, with a touch of irony.
“ ‘There are some secrets which they refused to reveal to me, such as the power to communicate with those other worlds, about which you have just discoursed so admirably, Monsieur de Fontenelle, and the power to live again.’
“ ‘Nevertheless, Marquis, you claim—’
“ ‘That secret, Monsieur de Fontenelle, I stole; and to punish me for the theft they sentenced me to the punishment of having all my fingers torn off. After pulling off the first finger, they offered to pardon me, if I consented to restore the phial I had stolen. I told them where it was hidden. But I had taken the precaution beforehand to change the contents, having poured the elixir into another phial.’
“ ‘So that, at the cost of one of your fingers, you have purchased a kind of immortality. … Of which you propose to make use. Eh, Marquis,’ said Monsieur de Fontenelle.
“ ‘As soon as I shall have put my affairs in order,’ I answered; ‘that is to say, in about a couple of years.’
“ ‘You’re going to make use of it to live again?’
“ ‘In the year of grace 1921.’
“My story caused Monsieur de Fontenelle the greatest amusement; and in taking leave of me, he promised to relate it in his Memoirs as a proof of my lively imagination—and doubtless, as he said to himself, of my insanity.”
Maître Delarue paused to take breath and looked round the circle with questioning eyes.
Marco Dario, of Genoa, threw back his head and laughed. The Russian showed his white teeth. The two Anglo-Saxons seemed greatly amused.
“Rather a joke,” said George Errington, of London, with a chuckle.
“Some farce,” said Archibald Webster, of Philadelphia.
Dorothy said nothing; her eyes were thoughtful.
Silence fell and Maître Dalarue continued:
“Monsieur de Fontenelle was wrong to laugh, my children. There was no imagination or insanity about it. The great Indian priests know things that we do not know and never shall know; and I am the master of one of the most wonderful of their secrets. The time has come to make use of it. I am resolved to do so. Last year, my wife was killed by accident, leaving me in bitter sorrow. My four sons, like me of a venturesome spirit, are fighting or in business in foreign lands. I live alone. Shall I drag on to the end an old age that is useless and without charm? No. Everything is ready for my departure … and for my return. My old servants, Geoffrey and his wife, faithful companions for thirty years, with a full knowledge of my project, have sworn to obey me. I say goodbye to my age.
“Learn, my children, the events which are about to take place at the Château of Roche-Périac. At
