The Bellefontaine Republican. [volume] (Bellefontaine, Logan County, Ohio) 1855-1905, 1899-06-02
STARTLING an
GRAB ROBBER
By David Ker

hMOW, professor, your baggage is
IN all in the boat, and whenever
you're ready, I am"
So spoke the captain of the Austrian
Lloyd steamer, which had just an
chored before the Syrian port of Jaffa
to big, light-haired, yellow-bearded
man in enormous green spectacles,
from behind which a pair of large blue
eyes looked out very kindly and pleas
antly.
Both the captain and his passengers
seemed to treat the spectacled man
with great respect, as well they might,
for he was no less a parsonage than the
famous German professor, Herr Julius
Allen stein, who had just come out to
the Holy Land for the third time, in
order to dig up a few more antiques"
for the Berlin museum
AS every eastern traveller knows, 1t is
no joke to get ashore at Jaffa, which is
merely am open roadstead, with dam
gerous reef right across it, upon which
the waves break SO furiously that 1t is
often impossible to land at all. Hence
the captains thought 1t best to take the
professor ashore in his own boat
But just as Herr Altenstein was step
ping toward the gangway, gaunt,
ragged, Withholding figure started up
right in his path, crying, In queer
tumble of italian, French and German;
"Signor! signor! Fine musicbox.
You buyhim, me sell very sheap."
The professor, annoyed at being
stopped, was going to push past; but
the poor Italians hungry, woe-begone
face touched his warm German heart.
and he felt in his pocket for some small
change, though without any idea OF
buying the musical box.
"Fine box, signor," repeated the Ital-
ian, seeing that he had mode some I'm
preston. "Play German song fine,
sect"
He touched the spring as he spoke,
and instantly the musical box struck
up "Die Wacht am Rhein-"
This was too much for the patriotic
professor, who hastily dropped hand
| full of silver into the Italians extended
palm, and thrusting the box into his
pocket, plunged into the boat like q
scared elephant.
Herr Altenstein was halfway to land
before he had done examining his new
| purchase, which was a queer-lookdng
| affair enough. The spring being quite
hidden and the box itself completely
coated with "grits" like the rough side
| of a matchbox, it looked at first sight
| Just like lump OF sandstone. But its
| tone was so clear and sweet that the
| professor thought he had made a very
| good bargain; and so indeed he had
| though In a way of which he little
dreamed just then.
That very night the professor and
his dragoman rode across the Plain ot
Sharon and through the hills OF Abu
Gosh, up to Jerusalem.
Here he stayed just long enough tS
get the necessary papers" from tht
Turkish pasha or governor, and theI
trotted off again along the.steep, mar
row path that winds through the tire
mendous precipices between Jerusalem
and the Plain of Jericho
Within two days of his landing, ou1
energetic professor had got over the
| OOIOStu, anu was 1iS Nv IL 49,
blue hills Of Moab, where his work Lay
1t is easy enough to get workmen' IL
Palestine when you have pasha's or
der in your pocket, and easier still
when you pay your men well, instead
of making them work for nothing, hk'
the pasha himself. Herr Altenstein dit
not take long to muster a gang o
tough, wiry, bare-limbed Arabs, abl
and willing to labor from sunrise til
sunset on the hottest day in summer
provided they got enough pastries T.
make it worth their while.
The Arabs, however, although quit
satisfied with the wages paid for thei
work, were sorely puzzled by the worl
itself. When they first saw Herr Alten
stein begin digging and grubbini
among the stones and dirt, the
naturally thought that he must be O.
the track of some of those "burie
treasures" about which the Syria
Arabs tell so many strange tales. Blu
when no treasure appeared, and the
found the professor raking togethe
broken bits of stone and rusty scrap
of old iron, they settled in their ow
minds that he was an enchanter, VIII
needed these seemingly WORTHLESS
things in order to frame magic spe
by which the buried money was to b
discovered. From that day he became