the measures of the outer court “to make a separation between the sanctuary and the profane place.”

All this conveyed to the deformed man but little.

That it had some connection with the strange secret was apparent, but in what manner he failed to distinguish.

He had gathered broadly that the dead man’s discovery was an amazing one, and that a strange secret was revealed by those documents when they were intact, but it was all so mystifying, so astounding, that he could scarce give it shape within his own bewildered brain.

The enormous possibilities of the discovery had utterly dumbfounded him—it was a discovery that was unheard of.

In order to present to the reader some idea of the fragments of the dead man’s papers lying upon the table before him, it may be of interest if the present writer gives a photographic representation of one of the badly burned folios.

As will easily be seen, the undestroyed fragment of the document showed but little that was tangible. Of interest, it was true, but the interest was, alas! a well-concealed one. The dead man was a scholar. Of that there was no doubt whatsoever. The doctor had recognised from the first that he was no ordinary person.

The document seemed to be a portion of some statement made by a person as to the curious and unexpected result of certain studies.

He who made the declaration had apparently been a student of the Talmud, and especially the school of the Amoraim, or debaters, who about A.D. 250 expounded the “Mishna.”

Raymond Diamond had long ago read Wunsche, Bacher and Strack, and from them had learned how the Amoraim had expounded the “Mishna,” and how their labours had formed the Gemara, while the united Mishna and Gemara formed the books of the Talmud. By that time, and even earlier, the teachers of Judaism were also working in the schools of Babylonis. Hence the Talmud now exists in two forms—the Palestinian Talmud, or Talmud of Jerusalem, and the Babylonian Talmud. Rabbi Jehuda compiled the “Mishna” which, in general, sums up the outcome of the activity of the Sopherim, Zugoth and Tannaim, and thus became the canonical book of the oral law.

He was recalling these facts as he sat staring at the half-charred fragments on the table before him.

“The person making the declaration,” he said aloud to 

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