That was not so. What they did find lying
between the beams which supported the flooring was a small copper box. In
it was a neatly-folded vellum document, with about twenty lines of
writing. Both Anderson and Jensen (who proved to be something of a
palaeographer) were much excited by this discovery, which promised to
afford the key to these extraordinary phenomena.
* * * * *
I possess a copy of an astrological work which I have never read. It has,
by way of frontispiece, a woodcut by Hans Sebald Beham, representing a
number of sages seated round a table. This detail may enable connoisseurs
to identify the book. I cannot myself recollect its title, and it is not
at this moment within reach; but the fly-leaves of it are covered with
writing, and, during the ten years in which I have owned the volume, I
have not been able to determine which way up this writing ought to be
read, much less in what language it is. Not dissimilar was the position
of Anderson and Jensen after the protracted examination to which they
submitted the document in the copper box.
After two days' contemplation of it, Jensen, who was the bolder spirit of
the two, hazarded the conjecture that the language was either Latin or
Old Danish.
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