He took up the
sheets of paper which lay upon the slab of sandalwood. They were
covered with wholly indecipherable characters save for the last page
only, and there, even as he stood with it in his fingers, he saw,
underneath the concluding paragraph of those unintelligible
hieroglyphics, a few words of faintly traced English, laboriously
printed, probably a translation. He struck a match and read them slowly
out to himself:
"It is finished. The nineteenth generation has triumphed. He who shall
eat of the brown fruit of this tree shall see the things of Life and
Death as they are. He who shall eat--" The translation concluded
abruptly. Mr. Alfred Burton removed his silk hat and reflectively
scratched his head.
"Queer sort of joker he must have been," he remarked to himself. "I
wonder what he was getting at?"
His eyes fell upon the little tree. He felt the earth in the pot it was
quite dry. Yet the tree itself was fresh and green.
"Here goes for a brown bean," he continued, and plucked one.
Even then, while he held it in his fingers, he hesitated.
"Don't suppose it will do me any harm," he muttered, doubtfully.
There was naturally no reply. Mr. Alfred Burton laughed uneasily to
himself.
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