watched it with intense excitement and high hopes, the 

 practical alchemists pressing the Arabian to let them assist 

 in maintaining the fire. Suddenly a frightful explosion took 

 place scattering live coals and filling the room with vile- 

 smelling, suffocating gases that quickly drove most of the 

 experimenters out of doors. Great confusion ensued, one or 

 two men had been burned by coals, more had been nearly 

 asphyxiated by the poisonous fumes, and those who were un- 

 injured sought to relieve the sufferings of their friends ; for a 

 short time the experiment was forgotten, as well as the 

 Arabian who seemed to have disappeared. Finally lights were 

 obtained and the boldest of the company penetrated the 

 laboratory still reeking with noisome vapors, only to dis- 

 cover that the clever Arabian had indeed fled, and had taken 

 with him the twenty-four hundred marks ; a broken crucible 

 smothered in coals lay before the half-ruined furnace, and an 

 open window leading to a side-alley showed the manner of 

 his departure. Needless to say this wearer of a fez was never 

 again seen in Prague. 



At the time when Sir Edward Kelley was in high favor 

 at Rudolph's court, the Emperor summoned from Vienna a 

 Greek alchemist who called himself "Count" Marco Bragadino, 

 but whose real name was Mamugna. He had made many 

 dupes in Italy by his skill in transmutation-tricks and in 

 conjuring evil spirits, as well as in the Austrian capital where 

 he created a great sensation. Settling in Gold Alley, he never 

 went through the streets without being accompanied by two 

 huge and fierce black mastiffs, which the common people re 

 garded as his familiar spirits. "His Excellency the Count," 

 as he liked to be called, met with no great success, however, 

 because he was quite overshadowed by Kelley then in the 

 zenith of his fame, and he soon left Prague for Munich where 

 he swindled the Duke of Bavaria out of a large sum. Being 



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