Southern sentinel. [volume] (Plaquemine, Parish of Iberville [La.]) 1848-1858, 1856-11-29
The Treasure of Rampsinltus.

| An arllcle IN the december number OF
Blackwood contains the following version
of the old but excellent story of Herodo-
tus, about the treasure of the Egyptian
| King Rampsinitus
'Rampsinitus had more money than he
knew what to do with, SO he ordered a
stone building to be made, one the walls
of which was joined to an outer wall of
his own dwelling. Wishing to make all
safe, be ordered the building to be made
without an entrance, SO that the treasure,
being built in, could never be got out a.
gain without pulling down the wall. The
architect, however, thinking it pity that
the treasure should be of no use to any one
and that the king would scarcely perceive
a certain amount of subtraction, devised
a stone in the wall, which was in appear
ance as fast as the rest, but really movable
by secret spring, and thus supplied his
| necessities from time to time from the
| kings hoard. This went on for all his
life. On his death bed the old scoundrel,
instead of repenting, let his two sons into
| the secret of the movable stone, consoling
his conscience with the fattering unction
that he was thereby securing livelihood
| for his children without greatly hurting
any one. The sons felt themselves in
duty bound to hell themselves, in accord
ance with their fathers wishes. But they
were not so fortunate as he was, for one
day the new king took it into his head to
pull down part of the wall and have look
at his treasure. What was his astonisl.
rnent when he saw that good part of it
had been spirited away. All the seals
were safe, and there was no window, door,
or chimney. He thought his father must
have made mistake as to the original a
mount so he plastered the hole up again,
and opened it sometime after, a second
time. The treasure had suffered further
dininution. However, he set man traps
among the Golfers, built the place up a.
gain, opened it again, and found, not
man, but a man's body, with the leg fast
IN gin and the head gone; still there was
no sign of entrance or exit.
Rampsinitus now thought he had hit on
device to catch the thief lie hung up
the bodyin public place, and set guards |
by it, ordering them to apprehend any
one they might see making demonstra-
tons of grief before it.
The mother of the dead man was hor- |
riied at this exposure of the corpse, and |
so, after making some difficulties, her |
surviving son determined to rescue it,
He provided himself with several asses,
and loading them with skin of wine
each, drove them on till he came by his
brothers corpse, and those who were
watching it. Then he managed to unfas-
ten two or three of the skins, so that the
wine ran out, but in such a manner that
it seemed accidental. This part of the
story shows of how old origin is the image
breaking dodge, said to be still sometimes
praticed in the streets of London. Then
he began beating his head, and cursing
his stars, as not knowing which ass was
losing most wine, and being consequently
i'll a difficulty which way to run to the
rescue. The guards, in high glee, and
thinking if a good joke, all ran to fetch
vessels to catch the wasting wine, while
he pretended to be in passion with them,
and began abusing them, which, under
the circumstances, amused them still
more: Having thus got them into high
good-hQmor, he ended by appearing to
make it up and giving them one of the
skins to drink. When they were royalty
drunk, and all asleep, he stole away his
brothers. carcass; and not content with
the completeness of this job, left all the
guards with their right whiskers shayen
off. The king, when he heard of the
stealing away of the corpse, was in a
greater rage than ever, but he kept it 10
himself, and was determined to find out1
the thief at any price.
Rampsinitus employed his daughter as
the detective, and she, watching her op-
portunity, extracted confession from the
culprt, and, Immediately after she had
heard it, seized him by the arm. He was
prepared for this, and ran away, leaving
a false arm in her hand. The confession
was an answersto the question. What
was the wickedest and wisest thing he had
everdonel The wickedest thing he allow
ed to have been beheadlng his brother,
which he was caught in the trap. to pre-
vent recognition, and the wisest thing
making the kings guards drunk, and
carrying off the body. This new escape
brought the kings rage to a climax, and
it eyaporated in admiration of the exceed
ing cleverness of this prince of artful dod
gers. So he made proclamation, prOmis-