at last i decided that the first portion was in the abbreviated latin of old documents, for after much puzzling i deciphered that the first words read “in dei nomine, amen.” at foot was an endorsement in old english, which i deciphered, making a covenant between certain parties, and below were seven scrawly signatures in that strange old elizabethan hand, namely of geo. greene, gilbert kanadale, john ffreeman, alex. stephen wyon, john dollington, clement wollerton, and george a. dafte, hys mark.
the bottom of the parchment had been cut until a short strip an inch wide hung from it, and upon this the round seal of yellow wax had been impressed, the device upon it being a shield with a leopard rampant, together with a fleur-de-lys. that is how best i can describe it, not being versed in heraldic terms.
that the two documents were precious ones could not for a moment be doubted when i recollected how carefully they had been preserved: first in that leathern bag and secondly in the treasure-chest. to me, however, they presented no appearance of value.
“what are they all about, doctor?” inquired the skipper, puffing at his pipe.
“at present i can’t tell. they’re both in latin,” i answered, “and we must wait until we get a proper translation. this”—and i held the second document in my hand—“was written in the time of queen elizabeth, and seems to be a covenant, or something of the sort.”
“i suppose we can get some lawyer chap to puzzle ’em out?” seal said.
“oh, i don’t anticipate any difficulty,” i answered. “only if there is any secret attached to them we don’t want to give it away.”
“ah! i never thought of that,” remarked the skipper. “it is, as you say, very probable that some secret is contained there, and for that reason they were so carefully preserved and hidden away. no, doctor, we’d better not employ a lawyer. he’d want to know too much.”
then i turned my attention to the books. the first i opened was of fine white parchment, thick, heavily bound, and written in a bold hand with many flourishes. a glance through it showed that it was an inventory of some kind, but it was all in italian and much beyond me. the only part i could translate was the commencement, which, as far as i was able to decipher, read as follows:?—
in the name of almighty god and of his holy mother, saint mary, and of st. peter, and of st. paul, of st. john the baptist, and of all the celestial court of paradise, who have conceded to me the benefit that i should commence this book sound of body and of mind. amen.
in this book written by me, bartholomew di simon da schorno, i have set down certain things that all men should know, as well as a certain secret that one alone may discover to his advantage hereafter.
and then followed about 150 pages of manuscript and memoranda.
through an hour i diligently endeavoured to decipher correctly regarding the secret mentioned, but it was in old italian, with long l’s and s’s, and therefore extremely difficult to understand.
the date of the conclusion of the book i discovered to be august 16, 1591, on a friday; while here and there i discovered the name of paule, evidently the same family as the pomp?o marie a paule, the pisan noble mentioned in the document with the leaden seal of cosimo di medici.
the author, bartholomew da schorno, whoever he was, had certainly produced a very respectable volume as regards size, and job seal and myself were extremely anxious to learn the secret which, in the introduction, was said to be contained therein.
the other books were not of great interest save perhaps to a bibliophile. they, however, showed that their owner was a scholar. the first, a thin manuscript on paper, and written in a neat gothic hand, which i afterwards discovered was of the early fifteenth century, bore the title, “trithemius, liber de triplici regione.” the others were a well-written book of monastic law on vellum, with red and blue capitals of about the same date, and a kind of old pocket-book, in which was a treatise entitled “loci communes theologici per dominicas et festes totius anni.”
it was the secret of old bartholomew da schorno—an italian, evidently—that we were eager to discover, for both seal and i felt confident that it would reveal to us the name of the dead owner of the seahorse and the history of that remarkable resurrection.
in that heavy parchment book was a secret which old bartholomew declared “one alone may discover to his advantage hereafter.”
what could it be?
job seal and i sat smoking our pipes and wondering what strange things were hidden within that yellow old volume that emitted so musty a smell.
little, however, did we dream of the remarkable consequences that were to follow upon our startling discovery. it is, indeed, well sometimes that the book of fate is ever closed to us.
