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

Ito 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 specialized man
Z with great respect, as well they might,
for he was no less a parsonage than the
& famous German professor, Herr Julius
J Allenstein, who had just come out to
= he Holy Land for the third time, in
order to dig up a few more "antiques''
j for the Berlin museum. ~ !
=; AS every eastern traveller knows, itds
3 no joke to get ashore atSJaffa, which is
= merely IAN open roadstead, with:.a dam
: gerous reef right across it, upon which
s: the waves ,brealSs SO, furiously: .thatit is
often impossible, to. land at all. HENCE
the captain thought it best to take the
professor ashore in.his> own boat aaswe :,
But just as Herr Altenstein was step
ping toward the gangway, gaunt,
ragged, wild-looking figure started up
right in...@his path, crying, ira queer;
tumble of italian, French and German:
uO1 I1O1 1uC uS1CUOA
You buy him, 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. ''r$%'IIH 20
s''Fine. box, .signor,''' repeated the Ital-
ian, seeing that he, had mode some i'm
preston. "Play German song fine,
see!'' - j
He touched the spring as he spoke,
and instantly the musical box struck
up 'Die Yacht am Rhein." y,.:..... :,
This was too much for the patriotic
professor, who hastily dropped a hand
full of silver into the Italians extended
palm, and thrusting the box into his
pocket, plunged into the boat like a
scared elephant.
Herr Altenstein was halfway to land
before he had done examining his new
purchase, which was a queer-lool2ing
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 it's
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 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 pasta 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. -.
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 lay.
1t is easy enough to get workmen in
Palestine when you have a pasha's 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 sunrise till
sunset on the hottest day in summer,
provided they got enough pastries to
make it worth their while. :s~g .. III
The Arabs, however, 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 CRU bbing
among the stones: and dirt, they
naturally thought that he must be on
the track of some Of those ''buried
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 order to frame magic spell |
by which the. buried money was to be |
discovered.s From that day he became
very mysterious and wonderful person
in their eyes, and his strange doings-
which grew stranger still every time
they were told-were the talk of the |
whole country round.
But it unluclily happened that
among the many who heard and Won
dered at these stories were band of |
Arab robbers who haunted the neigh
boring mountains; and it struck these
gentlemen that it would be no bad plan !
to get hold of this woodworking |