Beroviero watched him, holding the box in his hands.
"The lock is not very good," he said, "but I thought the box might keep
the packet from dampness."
"Is the packet properly sealed?" asked Zorzi, looking up.
"You shall see," answered the master, and he set down the box beside the
lamp, on the broad stone at the mouth of the annealing oven. "It is
better that you should see for yourself."
He unlocked the box and took out what seemed to be a small book,
carefully tied up in a sheet of parchment. The ends of the silk cord
below the knot were pinched in a broad red seal. Zorzi examined the wax.
"You sealed it with a glass seal," he observed. "It would not be hard to
make another."
"Do you think it would be so easy?" asked Beroviero, who had made the
seal himself many years ago.
Zorzi held the impression nearer to the lamp and scrutinised it closely.
"No one will have a chance to try," he said, with a slight gesture of
indifference. "It might not be so easy."
The old man looked at him a moment, as if hesitating, and then put the
packet back into the box and locked the latter with the key that hung
from his neck by a small silver chain.
"I trust you," he said, and he gave the box to Zorzi, to be deposited in
the hole.
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