Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1912-02-21

wife went to him and perched herself
upon the arm Of it, imprisoning his
head with her arms and laying her
cheek against his.
What has come, my hearth"
"One hundred thousand pounds"
he said. Treble its worth,
double what the O'Mahoney expect
ed.
"Who is the O'Mahoney, dear?"
He reused. can old friend, Beatrix
-an old comrade. He died some years
back, on the banks of the Tugela,
fighting with a Boer commando. He
was lonely man, without kith or kin
or many friends beside meself. That,
/ presume, is how he came to leave
the Pool of Flame with me-" He
wound an arm round her and held her
alose. "Hearken, dear, and I'll be
lelling We the story Of it."
Behind them the internal glare lit
up the portentous skies. Thunder
echoed between clouds and sea like
heavy cannoning.. The wife shrank
close to her beloved. 81 am not at all
afraid" she declared. when her voice
could be heard-"with you. E.
Tell me about the Pool OF Flame"
"The o'Mahoney left it with me
when he went to South Africa" ex-
planned O'Rourke. "'Twas a paste
board box the size of me fist, wrapped
in brown paper and tied with bit Of
string, that he brought me one even
Ing, saying he was about to leave, and
would l care for it in his absence. 1
knew no more of it than that twas
something he valued highly, but put
81 away in a safe-deposit vault-which
he might've done if he hadn't been g.
scatterbrain-an Irishman.
Then he wrote lie a letter. got
1T weeks after his death-saying he
felt he was about to go out, and that
the Pool of Flame was mine. He
went on to explain that the box con-
tanned monstrous big ruby and gave
me its history, as far as he knew it.
ut seems that there's a certain
highly respectable temple in one Of
the Shan States of Burmah Cts me-
self forgets the name of it) and in
that temple there's an idol, Buddha
of pure gold, tbs said. 1t would be
perfectly good Bdddha, only that it
lacks an eye; there's an empty socket
In its forehead, and It's" there the
Pool of Flame belongs-or come from.
in the old days the natives called this
stone the Luck Of the State, and
maybe they were right; for when 1t
disappeared the state became Brit
ish possession.
"In the war of 'eighty-five, says the
OMahoney, small detachment Of
British troops out Of touch with. their
command, happened upon this temple
we're speaking Of and took it, dispos-
Eessing priests and populace without
so much as a days notice. The officer
in command happened to see this eye
In the Buddha's forehead, pried it out
and put it in his pocket. In less than
an hour the natives surrounded the
temple and attacked in force. The
British stood them off for three days
and then were relieved; but in the
meantime the officer had been killed
and the Pool of Flame had vanished.
For several years it stayed
quiet, so far as is known. Then the
curse of the thing began to work, and
It came to the surface in drunken
brawl in the slums of Port Said. The
police, breaking into some dive to
stop a row, found nobody in the place
but dead Greek; they say twas
shambles. One of the police found the
big ruby in the dead mans fist and
before his companions guessed what
was up slipped away with the stone.
He was murdered some months
later in Genoese bagnio, by French
girl, who got away with it somehow.
The O'Mahoney came across
the thing in Algeria, when he was
serving with the Foreign Legion. He
was in Sidi Bel Abbas one night, off
duty, and wandering about, when he
heard man cry out for help in one
of the narrow black alleys Of the
place. He thought he recognized a
comrades voice. and surely enough,
when. he ran down to aid him, he
found a Dutchman, man of his own
regiment, fighting with half dozen
natives. He was about done for, the
Dutchman, when the o'Mahoney came
up, and so were three Of the Arabs.
The o'Mahoney took care Of the rest
of them, and left seven dead men be-
hind him when he went away-the
six natives and the Dutchman, who
had died in his arms and given him
the Pool of Flame with his last whis-
"That's how 1t came to me-" said
O'Rcurke.