Weird Tales/Volume 8/Issue 1/The Elixir of Life

The Elixir of Life
By Marc R. Schorer and August W. Derleth
THE swinging lantern at the farther end of the narrow-street approached closer and closer the house of Messer Girolani, the magician. The lackey who carried the bobbing light walked swiftly, spurred on by the mutterings of the hooded figure behind him. The night was lighted by the silver moon hanging in the sky, yet but a single moonbeam penetrated the darkness of the strait alley.
Messer Girolani sat alone in the heavily curtained room which he chose to call his laboratorium. The multi-colored liquids in the numerous phials about the room were in odd contrast to the black curtains on all sides. On the oaken table well toward the center of the room stood three large retorts, two or them partly filled with a colorless fluid. The only light in the room was that thrown by the fitful fire from which the hungry flames leaped upward and licked the pot suspended from a tripod above them. The weird shadows danced grotesquely on the black draperies. Messer Girolani's shadow, too, was grotesque, for his long nose and straggly beard made it look for all the world like that of Mephistopheles. Messer Girolani's gaze was fixed upon the

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