The two friends admitted that they did.
“Perhaps I can help you,” said the magician. “But you know, I do not doubt, that one does not look into the future as easily as one reads a calendar or a tablet.”
For a short time he seemed to be considering, and then went on, “I must think the matter over; and if the thing can be done there are some preparations which I must make. Meanwhile my secretary shall show you some things which may be worth your looking at.”
He touched a silver hand-bell which stood on a table—a slab of citron wood on a silver pedestal—which stood by his side. A young man, who was apparently of Egyptian extraction, entered the room. Arioch gave him his directions.
“Show these gentlemen the library and anything else that they may care to see.”
The library was indeed a curious sight. To the Greeks five centuries constituted antiquity. Legends, it is true, went back to a far remoter past, but there was nothing actually to be seen or handled of which they could be certain that it was much older than this. But here they stood in the presence of ages, compared to which even their own legends were new.
“This,” said their guide, pointing to an earthen jar, “contains the foundation cylinder of the Sun Temple, written by the hand of Naramsin himself. Nabonidus, whom you call Labynetus, found it more than two hundred years ago, and it was then at least three thousand years old. These again,” and he pointed as he spoke to several rows of bricks covered with wedge-shaped characters, “are the Calendar of Sargon. They are quite modern. They can be scarcely two thousand years old. This roll,” he went on, “was part of a library which King Nebuchadnezzar brought back from Egypt. He gave it to an ancestor of my master. It is the story of the king whom you call Sesostris, I think.”
These were some of the curiosities of the collection. But it contained a number of more modern works, and was especially rich, as might be expected, in works dealing with the possessor’s art. “There was no book of importance on this subject,” the secretary was sure, “that his master did not possess.” He pointed to the most recent acquisition, which had come, he said, from Carthage.
“It is almost the first book,” he remarked, “that has been written in that city; not worth very much, I fancy; but, then, my master likes to have everything, and there must be bad as well as good.”
There were other things in the library which some visitors might have thought more interesting than books. The heavy iron doors of a cupboard in the wall were thrown back, and showed a splendid collection of gold and silver cups and chargers, some of them exact models, the secretary said, of the sacred vessels from Jerusalem. The originals had been all scrupulously restored by Cyrus and his successors. A drawer was opened, and found to be full of precious stones, conspicuous among which were some emeralds and sapphires of unusual size. “Presents,” exclaimed the secretary, “from distinguished persons who have received benefit from my master’s skill.”