The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1912-06-01

He sank back in his chair, and his
wife went to him and perched herself
upon the arm OF 4, imprisoning his
head with her arms and laying her
cheek against his.
What has come, my hearth
One hundred thousand pounds"
he said. Treble it's worth,
double what the O'Mahoney expect
Who is the O'Mahoney, dear?"
| He reused. AN old friend, Beatrix
an old comrade. He died some years
back, on the banks OF the Tugela,
fighting with a Boer commando He
was a 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
close. 'Hearken, dear, ard I'll be
/ telling 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 Il am not at all
| afraid, she declared, when her voice
could be heard-"with you.
Tell me about the Pool of Flame
1.-The O'Mahoney left it nth 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 a bit of
string, that he brought me one even
ing. saying he was about to leave, and
| would | care for it in his absence l
| knew no more of it than that twas
something he valued highly, but | put
1t away in a safe-deposit vault-which
he might've done if he hadn't been a
| scatterbrain-an Irishman
Then he wrote me a letter. got
| it 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 a monstrous big ruby and gave
me its history, as far as he knew it.
1T seems that there's 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, a Buddha
of pure gold, it's said. 1t would be a
perfectly good Buddha, 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 it
disappeared the state became a Brit
ish possession.
"In the war of 'eighty-fve, says the
O'Mahoney, small detachment of
British troops out of touch with their
command, happened upon this temple
we're speaking of and took it, dispos-
sessing priests and populace without
so much as days notice. The officer
in command happened to see this eye
in the Buddha's forehead, pried it out
aDI 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
1t came to the surface in a drunken
brawl in the slums of Port Said. The
police, breaking into some dive to
stop a row, found nobody in the place
but a dead Greek; they say twas a
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 Sid Bel Abbas one night, of
duty, and wandering about, when he
, heard a man cry out for help in one
of the narrow black alleys Of the
place. He thought he recognized q
comrades voice, and surely enough
when he ran down to aid him, he
, found a Dutchman, a man of his OWL
regiment, fighting with half a dozer
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 hin
the Pool of Flame with his last whis
: per.
That's how it came to me-" saie
! | O'Rourke
t And where is it now?"
t Back in Algeria, if I'm not mistak
y en-. Ye remember Chambre
0 he was with us in the desert ant
s wanted We to marry him afterwards
a He has 1.-THE dear man; l love hin
+ like a brother. He sickened o
:, Europe when he found his case will
d you was hopeless, and went to Al
q giers, Joining the Foreign Legion.