"I should rather like to see it," he remarked.
Accordingly, as soon as dinner was finished, they put on their overcoats, and conducted by the Judge, who carried a lantern, they followed a path through the woods until they came to the bungalow.
Mr. Langton unlocked the door and put the key into his pocket. Then he lit an oil lamp, which presently burned up and illumined the room. They found themselves in what to all intents and purposes was a library. The four walls were stacked with books, but the overflow of these was so great that many were piled upon chairs and in odd corners of the room. In the centre of the floor-space was a large writing-desk, and near this a cabinet with several drawers. Lying open on the writing-desk was a fair-sized cash-box, in which several golden sovereigns glittered in the light.
"How careless, to be sure!" exclaimed the Judge. "I had no business to leave my cash-box open. The truth is, I was so excited about this discovery that I forgot to put it away."
"And where's the Sunstone?" asked von Hardenberg.
"I keep it here," said Mr. Langton.
Going to the cabinet, and unlocking the third drawer from the top, he took out a large stone and laid it on the table in the light of the lamp. His two nephews, one on either side of him, leaned forward to examine this extraordinary relic.
On one side of the Sunstone were the cuneiform characters already mentioned by the Judge. On the other was a great deal of writing in the same primitive language, scratched upon the face of the jade, but so faint as to be barely legible.
"It was only with the greatest difficulty," observed the Judge, "that I managed to decipher and translate this writing. It is in no known language. Indeed, I would never have been able to make head or tail of it had I not been a scholar of Sanskrit. This writing is nothing more nor less than the definite instructions for using the Sunstone for the purpose of entering the vaults of Zoroaster."
"What does it say?" asked von Hardenberg.