Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1908-02-02


darkest Africa, penetrating painless ungles, sleep
ing on the damp, sour ground by night, and by day
traversing pestilential rivers and skirting MAS
matte swamps; or tracking burning desert sands,
seldom if ever trod by the foot of a white man,
with no other companion than his native guide,
had taught Gerald Gersher new appreciation of
a life of luxury.
Therefore he heaved sigh of satisfaction, as
he stretched himself lazily in his steamer chair,
beneath the beams of the full moon on the deck
of the majestic liner, that was bearing him back
to his home in New York City, and the civilized
existence he had temporarily forsaken.
And with this welled up great wave of pity in
his soul for the men who braved such hardships
as he had endured, not for weeks and months, from
a mere longing for adventure as had he but for
years. in the search for wealth, which so often
eludes their grasp, or is won only when age, or
shattered health precludes its enjoyment. To his
minds eye the peaceful scene about him seemed
peopled with the emacated FORMS CHASTITY, drawn
faces, and staring, bloodshot eyes of seekers for
Natures hidden treasures, ever haunted by the
threatening specter of grisly Death.
Among these mental pictures one stood out with
startling vividness 1t was of a miserable man he
and his native guide had found dying in the desert
one night they were hurrying on to reach an
oasis only few miles away, which was their i'm
mediate destination. He could see it all as plainly
as if the scene actually before him. great,
red moon rising over the desoate waste OF barren
sands, and the gaunt form of the dying man, lying
stretched out where he had stumbled over tiny
hillock, within sight of what would have proved
a haven of refuge, with sunblistered, distorted
face uplifted to the sky black, proruding tongue,
and staring, dated eyes, in which the
preston of mute appeal of a wounded beast.
Skillfully the son of the desert had attempted to
revive the deathstrcken stranger with judiciously
administered sips of life-giving water, and stimu-
lants. But it was too late and feeby Juggling at
a siken cord suspended about his neck he drew
forth from the bosom of his shirt little sack of
goldembroidered brocade of Oriental design.
"Take it." he gasped family, as Gerald in obedi-
ence to his feeble gesture slipped the cord gently
over his head and bent an ear close to his lips
to catch his words. tits for Edith. My little
GIRL" and he died.
selves in the rightly of death, they seemed to
Gerald to take on strangely familiar aspect; and
on examining the garments of the corpse, before
laying it reverently in the shallow grave he and
his guide scooped out of the soft sand, he dis
covered that his surmise that he acquainted
with the dead correct 1t Gordon
Ramsey, father of sweet Edith, his playmate in
childhood now his afianced wife.
Some ten years earlier, Gordon Ramsey, prom
inent New York business man. after a disastrous
failure refusing to live on the small property be-
longing to his wife, had left his home and country
and gone out into the world to seek his fortunes,
declaring that he would never return until he had
sufficient means to rehabll1tate himself in
the business world. Thus had his quest ended.
When that same night, in his room in an Arab
inn, Gerald examined the silken sacket so strange
ly placed in his charge, he was astounded to bring
to light diamond OF such remarkable size and
briiancy as to be worth kings ransom.
On his arrival at New York. after paying the
duty on the magnificent stone, and the many other
valuable and beautiful articles he had collected in
his travels, staggering sum even to a man of his
wealth. Gerald had driven direct to the Tiffanys
where he had ordered the diamond set as pend
ant to a rope of Oriental opals, many of them of
his own collection designed as his own present to
his fair fancee
When these costly ornaments delivered to
him, he had straightway taken them to his banker,
Mr.. John Murray, of the most prominent in
the city, to whose charge he consigned them with
in That how he deliVered IN