Evening star., 1896-09-19

OF terrible accidents. Tre Arab had told
him there was some spell on it, but John
declared he didn't put any faith in that.
He advised Martin to keep it, as it might
be valuable as a curiosity
John died the next night About ten
days afteTward the boxes came, and NJ lr-
tin sent for me to come over and help him
urpack them, for We had tried to fancy
what sort of trinkets the boy had wasted
his money en- We soon saw that our wild
est fancies fell short. Those boxes held the
most useless things that good dollars could
be squandered for. 1 won't try to describe
them. but will hurry to the hone ball
we were most anxious to find, and that we
did come across at last. 1 stopped to lift
II out. and. supposing ball of bone would
be light, did not use much strength but
i was astonished to find that did not even
bulge it. and that it required a good mus
Gle to get 1t out. 1 had never been as much
surprised in my life. 1t was only about six
inches in diameter, but 1t would have out
weighed a solid ball of lead of Its size.
warned Martin of this I handed it to
him, but he was not prepared for such an
extraordinary weight ard almost let il fall
He put 1t on the table and rolled 1t
about as We examined IL. As John had
said, 1t was made of small squares of bone
cemented together with wonderful Skill
and polished until You could almost see
yourself in It, Martin at last took his
hands from it, and then another extraorfi-
rary thing happened Instead of lying
still. it rolled around of its own accord un-
til small black circle came uppermost
We put it back again and again. with the
circle down. and every time 1t righted
itself. This circle seemed to be the mark
OF lid, but We could not see any way to
open it. Some words were burned into the
bone beside this circle, but we saw that IL
would take better scholars than we were to
read them.
"As you may all imagine, we got yery
much Interested in this ball. but kept all
we had learned about it from every one;
IN fact. one knew such a thing had
\ t;r
copied the words on the lid and sent them
to e, friend of his who was a professor of
languages in a New England college. ask
ing him to translate them. He replied in
due time that the words were Arabic and
that they meant in English: A brave scion
or the third generation What this could
mean we hadn't the slightest idea, of
course, but supposed it referred to some
oriental superstition.
The thing that most mystifed us about
the ball. though. was the remarkable
weight. and We decided one evening that
as IL was really useless, we would break II
open AID see what did make 1t so heavy
This was an unlucky decision and 1 know
Mr.. Budthorne that your grandfather Uor.
ried over it to the day of his death Mar.
tin stood On one side of the table holdine
the lall tight in his hands. and 1. standing
on the other side. tried to force the edge OF
q cold chisel under the lid so as to pry II
of. We never knew how 1t happened
wEsther Martin touched a secret sprins
with MS hands or did with the chiseI, but
6t asy rate Ine iu suddenly new open anC
: hung back on an inside hinge
I'VE bent forward quickly and looked
IN to see what it held, and Immediately
Strengthened UP and looked at each Other
simply speeches. for the ball had moth
jns in il at all 1t was as empty as any.
thing could be. Martin put his hand:
;ercurd It and eXcrted the force he hat
usually done IN lifting 1t, and It rose VI
with a Jerk.
This Is a DEVILS own continuance, Alb
ner,' he said Take itg
IT did so. and dropped tho diabolica
thing CT the table. 1t had come dowr
to a natural weight. Where Its extra
ordinary heft had gone We could not tell
Certainly nothing had fallen from 1t.
bsgas to feel queer sensation of frigh
coming over me. and / looked at Martin
Eis face was getting pale and he stared
At me wildly, a. he whispered: