I need not assure the reader of the almost breathless anxiety with which I unrolled the volume.
It was in the Latin tongue, and was the work of a scribe.
The ink had faded somewhat, but, even in places where it had entirely disappeared, I could by the aid of a strong lens readily trace out the words by the lines scratched into the parchment by the point of the reed pen.
It was a copy of an ancient Roman newspaper or Acta Diurna, and bore a date corresponding to our forty-fifth year before the present era.
Cæsar was at the height of his power.
Peace reigned, the arts flourished. Rome, the centre of the world, was the home of a glory and magnificence far beyond anything the eyes of man had yet gazed upon.
The contents of this copy of the Acta Diurna were largely made up of detailed accounts of a famous trial just completed at Rome, in which seven noted sculptors had been found guilty of poisoning a beautiful maid named Paula, after they had each completed a statue of her, in order that no other sculptors should ever be able to make use of her for the same purpose.
The judges had pronounced the sentence of death upon them, but in consideration of their splendid services in beautifying the imperial city, Cæsar had changed their punishment from death to life-long exile.
The seven sculptors had been transported in an imperial galley to a far-away island in the Southern Seas. As stated in this copy of the Acta Diurna it was the most remote piece of land belonging to the Roman Empire lying to the Southward:
“Ad insulam remotissimam imperii romani medianorum.”