'Nay. I will do whatever you ask, saving only that.'
'And why not that?'
'I have promised my master to let none in.'
'But you go thither?'
'Yea.'
'What is there within?'
'No mystery, Monna Cassandra; nothing of moment. Machines, appliances, books, manuscripts. Certain strange plants, beasts, creeping things. Travellers bring them from distant lands. And there is one tree which has been poisoned.'
'What? poisoned?'
'Ay. He has it for experiments; that he may know the effect poison has upon plants.'
'Good Astro, tell me all you know of that tree.'