XX
IT HAS BEEN DONE AGAIN
Hereford, though Max's manner had in a measure prepared him for a surprise, halted astonished at the sight of the second box. There were, then, two such boxes in the world! Had that ancient artificer of Java, who made for the sultan the box in which to keep the emerald, made at the same time another just like it, perhaps in revenge? But as those about the table gave way to allow him to get nearer the illusion disappeared. The grotesque bodies of the figures on the four sides of the box were not of steel delicately hand-wrought, but of some rough composition which resembled but had more
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