“Fetch him wine, in the name of all the fiends!” said the alchemist.

“Aha! and thou wouldst spice it for me, old Truepenny, wouldst thou not?  Ay, I should have copperas, and hellebore, and vitriol, and aqua fortis, and twenty devilish materials bubbling in my brain-pan like a charm to raise the devil in a witch’s cauldron.  Hand me the flask thyself, old Tony Fire-the-Fagot—­and let it be cool—­I will have no wine mulled at the pile of the old burnt bishops.  Or stay, let Leicester be king if he will—­good—­and Varney, villain Varney, grand vizier—­why, excellent!—­and what shall I be, then?—­why, emperor—­Emperor Lambourne!  I will see this choice piece of beauty that they have walled up here for their private pleasures; I will have her this very night to serve my wine-cup and put on my nightcap.  What should a fellow do with two wives, were he twenty times an Earl?  Answer me that, Tony boy, you old reprobate, hypocritical dog, whom God struck out of the book of life, but tormented with the constant wish to be restored to it—­you old bishop-burning, blasphemous fanatic, answer me that.”

“I will stick my knife to the haft in him,” said Foster, in a low tone, which trembled with passion.

“For the love of Heaven, no violence!” said the astrologer.  “It cannot but be looked closely into.—­Here, honest Lambourne, wilt thou pledge me to the health of the noble Earl of Leicester and Master Richard Varney?”

“I will, mine old Albumazar—­I will, my trusty vender of ratsbane.  I would kiss thee, mine honest infractor of the Lex Julia (as they said at Leyden), didst thou not flavour so damnably of sulphur, and such fiendish apothecary’s stuff.—­Here goes it, up seyes—­to Varney and Leicester two more noble mounting spirits—­and more dark-seeking, deep-diving, high-flying, malicious, ambitious miscreants—­well, I say no more, but I will whet my dagger on his heart-spone that refuses to pledge me!  And so, my masters—­”

Thus speaking, Lambourne exhausted the cup which the astrologer had handed to him, and which contained not wine, but distilled spirits.  He swore half an oath, dropped the empty cup from his grasp, laid his hand on his sword without being able to draw it, reeled, and fell without sense or motion into the arms of the domestic, who dragged him off to his chamber, and put him to bed.

In the general confusion, Janet regained her lady’s chamber unobserved, trembling like an aspen leaf, but determined to keep secret from the Countess the dreadful surmises which she could not help entertaining from the drunken ravings of Lambourne.  Her fears, however, though they assumed no certain shape, kept pace with the advice of the pedlar; and she confirmed her mistress in her purpose of taking the medicine which he had recommended, from which it is probable she would otherwise have dissuaded her.  Neither had these intimations escaped the ears of Wayland, who knew much better how to interpret them.  He