They had searched through boxes for almost three hours when Matt heard the gasp escape Herr Mischeler’s mouth. He rushed to his side. In total, they had gone through fourteen boxes. There were only three to go, but now, they needn’t go any further. Herr Mischeler held a very old leather-bound volume. Embossed in the front was a nearly eroded emblem that Matt immediately recognised as being the same as that on the jar. There was no doubt in his mind, this was what they were looking for.
Herr Mischeler turned the book over carefully, and opened the front cover with a gentle, practiced motion. The text, in a beautiful hand, was unmistakably Spanish. Julia explained that she was fluent in Spanish and Herr Mischeler passed her the volume. She read from the front, translating the content into English directly from the page.
‘The Journal of Captain Francisco de Hoces of the Caravel San Lesmes, 1525.’
‘San Lesmes? Ever heard of it?’ Matt asked excitedly.
‘It is familiar,’ Julia confirmed. ‘I think it might have been one of the ships lost during the Loaisa expedition.’
‘Must have really been lost.’ Herr Mischeler laughed.
‘It looks like the Spanish found their way to New Zealand after all,’ Andreas said.
‘This will be great for our library.’
‘This will be great for a lot of people,’ Matt said. ‘But it’s also going to stir up some trouble.’
The four of them stood in silence, admiring the pages of the journal. It was in good condition, considering its age, excepting one part where a page or two appeared to have been lost. Perhaps torn out. The tear was very clean. But that aside, the preservation in the cave, and now the library, had apparently been suitable to the materials.
‘Can we take this with us?’ Matt asked.
‘No,’ Herr Mischeler said.
Matt’s heart sank. Andreas looked disappointed. Herr Mischeler reached out to Julia, who obligingly passed the book to him.
‘But we can make a copy for you right away,’ Mischeler said. ‘We have a very high-end book scanning solution upstairs. I’ll get them onto it straight away.’
He grabbed a yellow box from a pile nearby, placed the book in it, and made his way to the conveyer system at the end of the row. There, he placed the box onto the track, and punched a code into the adjacent keypad. The conveyer sprang to life and the box moved along to a large upward bend in the track, where it disappeared through a hole in the ceiling.
‘Alright,’ Mischeler said. ‘Let’s get ourselves upstairs so that you can pick up your copy.’
‘What will you do with the original?’ Matt asked.
‘Nothing, for now. This is your discovery, Dr. Cameron. We will safeguard the original until you’ve made any announcements, then we’ll make our own reports and make it available for special display. But the credit for this lies with you.’
Matt thanked Herr Mischeler for his professionalism.
Some ten minutes later, they stood in an office near the Special Collections reading room, watching as a lady meticulously operated a huge industrial scanner that digitised the journal. In what seemed like no time at all, she turned to Herr Mischeler to pass him the leather-bound volume, advising him she was finished.
‘Can you make a copy for Dr. Cameron, please?’ Herr Mischeler asked her.
‘Already have,’ the lady said, as another woman entered from an adjacent room with a bound pile of paper. She accepted the work from her colleague and passed it to Matt.
‘Matt, let me take the copy to the reading room and start translating it now.’ Julia pleaded.
Matt agreed, and passing her the copy, he promised to come and collect her after a coffee with Andreas. As Julia closed the door behind her, the lady turned to Matt again and passed him a grey and red memory stick with an ETH logo on it.
‘This memory stick contains all of the text of the volume as recognised by the OCR. You can use this in any word processor. It might come in handy.’
‘Thanks.’ Matt smiled. ‘I may just find a use for that.’
‘Let me take you back out to the public areas,’ Herr Mischeler said. ‘I have to get back to my work, but Dr. Cameron, it’s been a pleasurable interlude to my typical week.’
‘The pleasure was all ours,’ Matt said.
‘It really was,’ Andreas said. ‘We can’t thank you enough for your accommodation.’
‘No thanks are necessary, gentlemen. Just promise to keep me in the loop on this. I look forward to finding out the whole story. I’ll look after this in the meantime,’ he said, tapping the leather of the original.
He led them out to the lobby and they said their goodbyes. Matt and Andreas decided to pop down to the cafe they had seen on the ground floor. Matt needed a strong coffee and there was a lot to talk about. Then, they would go and see how Julia was getting on. Matt pressed the call button on the lift. As the doors slid open, Matt and Andreas were greeted with the view of two uniformed police officers, complete with holstered side-arms and batons.
‘Are you Dr. Matthew Cameron?’ one of them asked.
Matt looked at Andreas, who nodded to him, reassuring him that police here are trustworthy. ‘Yes,’ he answered.
‘Dr. Cameron, we need to talk to you. Would you and your friend here please accompany us to the station?’
‘Are we under arrest?’
‘No, we just need to talk. It will only take an hour or so.’
‘Sure,’ Matt said, feeling the memory stick in his jacket pocket. ‘Let’s go.’
Matt and Andreas followed the officers into the lift. Matt decided not to add Julia to this fray. He just hoped that she wouldn’t go looking for them before they got back. Something told him she wouldn’t. She had plenty to occupy herself.