Warren sheaf. [volume] (Warren, Marshall County, Minn.) 1880-current, 1899-03-23
STARTLING an
GRAB ROBBER
By David Ker

=
IS BY David Ker
-: Nov, profess Tsy baggage is
all in the boat, and whenever
your ready am a ~ Is s b s.
4 =. So spoke the captain of the Austrian
Lloyd steamer, which had just an Z;
= chored before the Syrian port of Jaffa
Ito big, light-haired, yellow bearded
man in enormous green spectacles,
iron behind which a pair of large blue
s. eyes looked out very kindly and pleas
8. antly.
=. Both the captain and his passengers
q with great respect, as well they might,
= for he was no less a parsonage than the
g famous German professor, Herr Julius
B Allenstein, who had just come out to
B the Holy Land for the third time, in
3 order. to dig up a few more antiques
o for the Berlin museum.
r. AS every eastern traveller knows, iTt4s
4 no joke to get ashore atJaffa, which Is.
a merely FAN ssopen roadstead, witha dan
4 gerous reef right across it, upon which
81 the sbreaAs SO. furiously sthatit is,
often impossible, to. land at all. HENCE.
the captain thought it best to take the
professorsashore inmsrown boat.- asss
But just as Herr Altenstein was step
ping toward the gangway, a gaunt,
ragged, Withholding figure started up
right in,shis path, crying, ina queer
jumblese of ITALIAN. French and GerlnaIf:
.signor! signor! Fine musicbox.
You buy him, me sell very siheap.'' nj u
The professor, annoyed at being
stopped, was going to push past; but
the poor Halian's hungry, woe-begone
and he felt II his pocket For Some Small
change, though without any idea of
buying the musical box. }EE&t e. a
SFines, box, ssiggpor" IT, repeated the Ital.7
ian, seeing that he had mode some i'm
preston. play German song fine
see!'' -. ~ fIEssrh2 VITAE =
He touched the spring as he spoke,
and instantly the musical box struck
upssDie Yacht am Ri elm. - 4, III ~ sG q ) !,
This was too much for the patriotic
professor, who hastily dropped a hand
fulgof silver into the Italians extended
palm, and thrusting the rboxsinto his
pocket, plunged into the boat like
scared elephant. : <&>t= &&.1 :
rs Herr Altenstein was half way to land
before he had done examining his new
purchase, which was "a queer-looking
affair enough. The spring being. quite
hidden and the box itself completely
= coated with "grits" ike.the roughsside
ola matchbox, it looked at frs. Sight
: just like lump of sandstone. But it's
tone was so clear and sweet that the
professor thought he had made 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 of
Sharon and through the hills of Abu-
Gosh, up to Jerusalem.
Here he stayed just long enough to
get the necessary papers" from the
Turkish pasha or governor, and then
trotted off again along the steep, mar
row path that winds through the ire
mendous precipices between Jerusalem
and the Plain of Jericho. as. r..
Within two days of his landing, our
energetic professor had got over the
Jordan, and was right in among the
blue hills of Moab, where his work Law.
It is easy enough to get workmen in
Palestine when you have a pasha'si or
der in your pocket, and easier still
when you pay your men well, instead
of making them work for nothing, like
the pasha himself Herr Altenstein did
not take. long to, muster gang Of
tough, wiry, bare-limbed Arabs able
and willing to labor from sunrisestill
sunset on the hottest day in summer,
provided they got enough pastries to
makesit worth heirswhile. ss Il. sss
.The@Arabs,a hoWeyer, although quite
satisfied with the wages paid for their
work, were sorely puzzled by: the work
itself. When they first saw; Herr Alien
stein begin digging and grubbing
among the stones and dirt they
naturally thought that he must be on
treasures about which the Syrian
Arabs tell SO many strange tales. But
. when no treasure appeared, and they
found the professor raking together
broken bits of stone. and rusty scraps
of old iron, they settled in their own
minds that he was an enchanter, who
needed these seemingly worthless
things in ordersto frame a magic spell
by which the buried money was to be
discovered. From that day he became a
very mysterious and Wond erful person
z in their ewes and his STRANGE dimes