ancient church beadle among Septimius's forefathers, when emigrating from
England, had taken the opportunity of bringing the poor-box along with
him. On looking close, too, there were rude embellishments on the lid and
sides of the box in long-rusted steel, designs such as the Middle Ages
were rich in; a representation of Adam and Eve, or of Satan and a soul,
nobody could tell which; but, at any rate, an illustration of great value
and interest. Septimius looked at this ugly, rusty, ponderous old box, so
worn and battered with time, and recollected with a scornful smile the
legends of which it was the object; all of which he despised and
discredited, just as much as he did that story in the "Arabian Nights,"
where a demon comes out of a copper vase, in a cloud of smoke that covers
the sea-shore; for he was singularly invulnerable to all modes of
superstition, all nonsense, except his own. But that one mode was ever in
full force and operation with him. He felt strongly convinced that inside
the old box was something that appertained to his destiny; the key that he
had taken from the dead man's breast, had that come down through time, and
across the sea, and had a man died to bring and deliver it to him, merely
for nothing? It could not be.

He looked at the old, rusty, elaborated lock of the little receptacle. It
was much flourished about with what was once polished steel; and
certainly, when thus polished, and the steel bright with which it was
hooped, defended, and inlaid, it must have been a thing fit to appear in
any cabinet; though now the oak was worm-eaten as an old coffin, and the
rust of the iron came off red on Septimius's fingers, after he had been
fumbling at it. He looked at the curious old silver key, too, and fancied
that he discovered in its elaborate handle some likeness to the ornaments
about the box; at any rate, this he determined was the key of fate, and he
was just applying it to the lock when somebody tapped familiarly at the
door, having opened the outer one, and stepped in with a manly stride.