at once, and therefore it was necessary that one should die in the act of
transmitting it to the hand of another, the destined possessor, inheritor,
profiter by it. By the bloody hand, as all the great possessions in this
world have been gained and inherited, he had succeeded to the legacy, the
richest that mortal man ever could receive. He pored over the inscrutable
sentences, and wondered, when he should succeed in reading one, if it
might summon up a subject-fiend, appearing with thunder and devilish
demonstrations. And by what other strange chance had the document come
into the hand of him who alone was fit to receive it? It seemed to
Septimius, in his enthusiastic egotism, as if the whole chain of events
had been arranged purposely for this end; a difference had come between
two kindred peoples; a war had broken out; a young officer, with the
traditions of an old family represented in his line, had marched, and had
met with a peaceful student, who had been incited from high and noble
motives to take his life; then came a strange, brief intimacy, in which
his victim made the slayer his heir. All these chances, as they seemed,
all these interferences of Providence, as they doubtless were, had been
necessary in order to put this manuscript into the hands of Septimius, who
now pored over it, and could not with certainty read one word!

But this did not trouble him, except for the momentary delay. Because he
felt well assured that the strong, concentrated study that he would bring
to it would remove all difficulties, as the rays of a lens melt stones; as
the telescope pierces through densest light of stars, and resolves them
into their individual brilliancies. He could afford to spend years upon it
if it were necessary; but earnestness and application should do quickly
the work of years.

Amid these musings he was interrupted by his Aunt Keziah; though generally
observant enough of her nephew's studies, and feeling a sanctity in them,