the glittering starlight beamed—but I heeded it not. A few minutes' brisk walking brought me to my own door, my hand clutching, through the thin cloth of my light overcoat, the precious roll which contained that record, more precious than the chronicles of kings long since vanished into thin air; for was it not the unrolling of the time to come—my future, Estelle's, and our children's? What glass cases filled with registers of dynasties of the long ago; what sarcophagi, enclosing the mortal remains of monarchs and sages who swayed the earth's destinies when time was yet young; what crumbling rolls, or incised cylinders, bearing enactments which shook nations to their foundations, achievements which reduced whole peoples to abject slavery, so interesting as these soft, closely-written pages, on which I—I alone now of all mortals on earth—was privileged to hear the happenings of the time to come? What treasury, with walls bursting under pressure of silver bars and golden ingots, with cabinets enclosing priceless jewels—so valuable as those squares of paper, from which those records were compiled, yet which a vagrant spark could reduce to nothingness?
