The whole interior of the ivory tree was hollow, and packed with rice powder.
The girl picked up a metal paper knife, and loosened the powder in the hollow ivory. Hard pellets were embedded in the rice powder, and when she released them, great oriental pearls appeared—huge, magnificent—a double handful of them; unequaled, matchless, priceless, worth the ransom of a province.
And at the moment, the last stroke of the clocks sounded above the city, commemorating the hour of the birth of the Saviour of the World.