the glittering starlight beamed—but I heeded it not. A few minutes’ brisk walking brought me to my own door, my hand clutching, through the thin cloth of my light overcoat, the precious roll which contained that record, more precious than the chronicles of kings long since vanished into thin air; for was it not the unrolling of the time to come—my future, Estelle’s, and our children’s? What glass cases filled with registers of dynasties of the long ago; what sarcophagi, enclosing the mortal remains of monarchy and sages who swayed the earth’s destinies when time was yet young; what crumbling rolls, or incised cylinders, bearing enactments which shook nations to their foundations, achievements which reduced whole peoples to abject slavery, so interesting as these soft, closely-written pages, on which I—I alone now of all mortals on earth—was privileged to hear the happenings of the time to come? What treasury, with walls bursting under pressure of silver bars and golden ingots, with cabinets enclosing priceless jewels—so valuable as those squares of paper, from which those records were compiled, yet which a vagrant spark could reduce to nothingness?
I sprang up the stairs, three at a time, with my brain on fire, my eyes wide open, glistening; the blood throbbing in temples and tingling in finger tips. Like Monte Cristo, I felt that the world was mine.
So eager was I to know with what the womb of the future was pregnant, that I disregarded, in favor of my excited mind, the claims of my wearied body; and forgetful of the fact that I had eaten nothing since morn, I pondered far into the night over the revelations of the wonderful manuscript entrusted to me by my wonderful new-found friend.
Omitting some introductory portions which consisted of practically the same partial explanations as to methods, which Brathwaite had given me orally, I give this manuscript entire.
“FIFTY YEARS HENCE.”
Warwick:—There is a history in all men’s lives
Figuring the nature of the times deceased;
The which observed, a man may prophesy
With a near aim, of the main chance of things
As yet not come to life; which in their seeds