[Footnote 7:  This urn was found in 1533.  It contained a lesser one, in which was a burning lamp betwixt two small vials, the one of gold, the other of silver, both of them full of a very clear liquor.  On the largest was an inscription, stating that Maximus Olybius shut up in this small vessel elements which he had prepared with great toil.  There were many disquisitions among the learned on the subject.  It was the most received opinion, that this Maximus Olybius was an inhabitant of Padua, that he had discovered the great secret, and that these vessels contained liquor, one to transmute metals to gold, and other to silver.  The peasants who found the urns, imagining this precious liquor to be common water, spilt every drop, so that the art of transmuting metals remains as much a secret as ever.]

While at Padua, he had met with an adept versed in Arabian lore, who talked of the invaluable manuscripts that must remain in the Spanish libraries, preserved from the spoils of the Moorish academies and universities; of the probability of meeting with precious unpublished writings of Geber, and Alfarabius, and Avicenna, the great physicians of the Arabian schools, who, it was well known, had treated much of alchymy; but, above all, he spoke of the Arabian tablets of lead, which had recently been dug up in the neighbourhood of Granada, and which, it was confidently believed among adepts, contained the lost secrets of the art.

The indefatigable alchymist once more bent his steps for Spain, full of renovated hope.  He had made his way to Granada:  he had wearied himself in the study of Arabic, in deciphering inscriptions, in rummaging libraries, and exploring every possible trace left by the Arabian sages.

In all his wanderings, he had been accompanied by Inez through the rough and the smooth, the pleasant and the adverse; never complaining, but rather seeking to soothe his cares by her innocent and playful caresses.  Her instruction had been the employment and the delight of his hours of relaxation.  She had grown up while they were wandering, and had scarcely ever known any home but by his side.  He was family, friends, home, everything to her.  He had carried her in his arms, when they first began their wayfaring; had nestled her, as an eagle does its young, among the rocky heights of the Sierra Morena; she had sported about him in childhood, in the solitudes of the Bateucas; had followed him, as a lamb does the shepherd, over the rugged Pyrenees, and into the fair plains of Languedoc; and now she was grown up to support his feeble steps among the ruined abodes of her maternal ancestors.