The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1896-07-11

cheeks flush. And sometimes he hides.
hides ever, and will not let me know
or suspect"
More rubies, they are saying" and
Azim. dreamily, and repeated, as If for
his own pleasure, "Rubies." For Azim
was the heir.
Especially is 1t since that English
man came" said Golam, three months
ago. A big old man, not wrinkled as
an old man should be, but red, and with
red hair streaking his gray, and with
tight skin and u big body sticking out
before. So--a hippopotamus of a man,
a great quivering mud bank of man,
who laughed nightly, SO that the peo-
pie stopped and listened in the street.
He came, he laughed, and presently We
heard them laugh osether-'
"Well?" said Azim.
''He was a diamond merchant. per-
haps--Or a dealer in rubies. Do English
men deal in such things.
"Would had seen him!" said Azim.
"He took gold away" said Golam.
Both We're silent for a space, and the
purring noise of the wheel of the upper
WELL and the chatter of the voices about
it rising and falling. made pleasant
sound in the air. "Since the English
man went" said Golam, 'hc has been
different. He hides something from me
something in his robe. Rubies! What
else can it be?"
"He has not buried ito" said AZim.
"He will. Then he will want 20 dig 1t
up again and look at it," said Golam, for
he was a man of experience. II go soft
ly. Sometimes almost come upon him.
Then he starts"
He grows old and nervous" said
Azim, and there was a pause.
Before the English came" said Co
lam, laaking at the rings upon his fin
gers, as he required to his constant pre-
occupations: there We're no Rajahs ner-
vous and old
''The English are for time" said
AZim, philosophically, watching a speck
of vulture in the air, over the walnut
trees that hid the palace.
That, l say. was even before the COM
ing of the safe. 1t came in a packing
case. Such u case it was as had never
been sen before in all the slope of the
Himalayan mountains; ii was an ele-
plants burden. 1t was days drawing
nearer and nearer tediously. At Al
lapore the news preceded 1t, and crowds
went to Sc it pass upon the railway.
Afterwards elephants and then great
multitude of men dragged it up the hills.
And this great case being opened in the
hall of audience revealed within itself
a monstrous iron box, like no other box
that had ever come to the city. 1t had
been made. so the story went, by nccro-
mancers in England. expressly to the
order of the Rajah. that he might keep
his treasures therein and sleep in peace.
1t was SO hard that the hardest files
powdered upon its corners, and so strong
that cannon fired point blank at it would
have produced no effect upon it. And
it locked with magic lock. There was
q word, and none knew the word but
the Rajah. With that word, and little
key that hung about his neck, one could
open the lock; but without it none could
do so.
So the story half whispered its Won
derful self about the city. The Rajah
caused this safe to be built into the wall
of his palace in little room beyond the
hall of audience. He superntended the
building up of it with jealous eyes. And
thereafter he would go thither by day
once at least every day, coming back
with brighter eyes.
"He goes to count his treasure said
Golam Shah. standing beside the empty
dais.
And in those days it was that the
Raiah began to change. He who had
been cunning and subtle became chol-
eric and outspoken. His judgment grew