The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 216: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE TWO DOORS 199 those laboratories of the middle ages where sages pursued their researches deep into the night, patiently awaiting the happy moment (but a moment which never came) when the philosopher’s stone should appear in precipitation at the bottom of a crucible, or the elixir of life should distil drop by drop from the lips of a retort. Jocelyn was so struck by the appearance of this chamber that he forgot for the moment his appointment with Mrs. Roberts and all the other circumstances which had so recently been paramount in his mind. Indeed, he felt a strong inclination to open that massive volume and examine its contents, but the next instant he blushed with very shame at the bare idea of thus penetrating into the _ secrets which pertained to Doctor Maravell, if secrets they indeed were. But as he stood in the middle of that room, gazing around _ by the hight of the candle which he held in his hand, he be- came aware of a powerful odour of spices which gradually stole upon his senses, and this was mingled with another smell, of a far different character, and which seemed to be that of death. It was strange how these two odours struck simultaneously, and yet so distinctly and differently, upon the olfactory nerve, but so it was, and the notion of some- thing embalmed speedily forced itself upon Jocelyn’s imagina- tion. It was now quite mechanically, indeed, altogether in an unpremeditated way, that Loftus opened one of the cup- board doors which stood ajar. But, heavens! how sudden and convulsive was the start which he gave as two rows of hu- man heads bristled up before his view. Yes, there they were, two ranges of human heads, looking out at him with fixed and glassy gaze from the recesses of that cupboard. But our hero’s terror was only momentary. Hideous and shock- ing as the spectacle might be, he was not a child to be terrified by it; he recoiled in horror, but he trembled not with alarm. On the contrary, he now inspected those heads more closely, and he found that, being embalmed, they were, as he suspected, the sources of the blended odours which had struck so powerfully on his sense. But he also observed that the shaven crowns were delicately marked with a number of lines, dividing the surface of the cranium into several sections, each section being distinguished by a figure. In- <S) (C(O) im CORMIC JOO!