“Anything fresh lately?” said Villiers after a while.

“No; I think not; you saw those queer jugs, didn’t you?  I thought so.  I don’t think I have come across anything for the last few weeks.”

Austin glanced around the room from cupboard to cupboard, from shelf to shelf, in search of some new oddity.  His eyes fell at last on an odd chest, pleasantly and quaintly carved, which stood in a dark corner of the room.

“Ah,” he said, “I was forgetting, I have got something to show you.”  Austin unlocked the chest, drew out a thick quarto volume, laid it on the table, and resumed the cigar he had put down.

“Did you know Arthur Meyrick the painter, Villiers?”

“A little; I met him two or three times at the house of a friend of mine.  What has become of him?  I haven’t heard his name mentioned for some time.”

“He’s dead.”

“You don’t say so!  Quite young, wasn’t he?”

“Yes; only thirty when he died.”

“What did he die of?”

“I don’t know.  He was an intimate friend of mine, and a thoroughly good fellow.  He used to come here and talk to me for hours, and he was one of the best talkers I have met.  He could even talk about painting, and that’s more than can be said of most painters.  About eighteen months ago he was feeling rather overworked, and partly at my suggestion he went off on a sort of roving expedition, with no very definite end or aim about it.  I believe New York was to be his first port, but I never heard from him.  Three months ago I got this book, with a very civil letter from an English doctor practising at Buenos Ayres, stating that he had attended the late Mr. Meyrick during his illness, and that the deceased had expressed an earnest wish that the enclosed packet should be sent to me after his death.  That was all.”

“And haven’t you written for further particulars?”

“I have been thinking of doing so.  You would advise me to write to the doctor?”

“Certainly.  And what about the book?”

“It was sealed up when I got it.  I don’t think the doctor had seen it.”

“It is something very rare?  Meyrick was a collector, perhaps?”

“No, I think not, hardly a collector.  Now, what do you think of these Ainu jugs?”

“They are peculiar, but I like them.  But aren’t you going to show me poor Meyrick’s legacy?”

“Yes, yes, to be sure.  The fact is, it’s rather a peculiar sort of thing, and I haven’t shown it to any one.  I wouldn’t say anything about it if I were you.  There it is.”

Villiers took the book, and opened it at haphazard.

“It isn’t a printed volume, then?” he said.

“No.  It is a collection of drawings in black and white by my poor friend Meyrick.”

Villiers turned to the first page, it was blank; the second bore a brief inscription, which he read: 

Silet per diem universus, nec sine horrore secretus est; lucet nocturnis ignibus, chorus Aegipanum undique personatur:  audiuntur et cantus tibiarum, et tinnitus cymbalorum per oram maritimam.