In one open space a number of boys, who evidently
belonged to the establishment, were at their sports, but
everywhere I observed those mysterious old gray men in black
mantles, sometimes sauntering alone, sometimes conversing in
groups; they appeared to be the pervading genii of the place. I
now called to mind what I had read of certain colleges in old
times, where judicial astrology, geomancy, necromancy, and other
forbidden and magical sciences were taught. Was this an
establishment of the kind, and were these black-cloaked old men
really professors of the black art?
These surmises were passing through my mind as my eye glanced
into a chamber hung round with all kinds of strange and uncouth
objects--implements of savage warfare, strange idols and stuffed
alligators; bottled serpents and monsters decorated the
mantelpiece; while on the high tester of an old-fashioned
bedstead grinned a human skull, flanked on each side by a dried
cat.
I approached to regard more narrowly this mystic chamber, which
seemed a fitting laboratory for a necromancer, when I was
startled at beholding a human countenance staring at me from a
dusky corner. It was that of a small, shrivelled old man with
thin cheeks, bright eyes, and gray, wiry, projecting eyebrows.
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