The Green Forest tribune., 1917-01-26
THE AMULET OF MARDUK |


"A few weeks after we had engaged Miss Blythe my wife began to miss valuables of hers. Rings seemed to be the young woman's penchant. An opal, diamond and sapphire, and a magnificent emerald in a fifteenth century setting disappeared successive. ly. We changed our servants without result. At last, by force of con stantly dwindling number of hypoth- eses, the suspicion came to rest upon Miss Blythe's shoulders.
 However, as Mrs. Tarrant locked away her valuables, nothing more was taken, and we should probably have | kept the young woman in our employ ment but for what happened. The gov erness was great student of antiqui- ties in fact, she had knowledge of Hittite and Babylonian archaeology which astonished me and was pri- mary factor in the securing of her posi- tion. She had half days leave every week, and invariably spent it at the museum. She became a well-known | figure there, for she always haunted | the Assyrian room, in which, as you may know, are a number of engraved | gems, of immeasurable value, brought from Babylonia by the expedition which I sent there for the purpose of excavating the mounds of Nineveh. | Some ten days ago the watchman, who had somehow become suspicious of the young woman, discovered her with the half of sacred amulet in her hand i ring supposed to have been worn by | the high priest of Marduk. AS you may most cherished possessions of the As, | syrian department The watchman ar rested her and summoned the curator. | When he came 1t was discovered that | the half amulet still reposed in its | place inside the case. The half which Helen Blythe held in her hand was mine-the other half, and willed by me to the museum. The young woman made no resistance, but suffered her self to be led away, as if in comatose state She was brought to my house, I identified the half of the charm, and the girl was placed under arrest, | to be released under a suspended sentence yesterday
 Where is the girl?" asked Doctor Immanuel
 "Why, doctor" said MT. Tarrant, flushing, q am ashamed to say that have taken her back"
 "Good!" calculated the doctor, puff l at bic niOar aRut she will steal again"
 Indeed, no," answered the million aire with conviction. We had very serious talk with her, Mrs. Tarrant and I. We told her that we felt, under the circumstances, which we had not fully understood, that we ought not to turn her adrift into the world. We thought that by the force of example, perhaps, we might cure her of her unfortunate propensity. And so she was re-engaged mot, of course, as governess, but as a sort of aid to my wife"
 And she was penitent?"
 Entirely so. She protested that she would conquer her weakness; she vowed never to touch jewelry again, or to look at it. She pleaded earnestly for our confidence, said it was only rings which she felt an irresistible temp tation to take, and"
 And she will steal again. said Doc tor Immanuel.
 Well, doctor, you have poor faith in human nature, considering your hu- manitarian profession" said the mil lionaire.
 q tell you, MT. Tarrant, she will steal again." persisted the doctor. You cannot eradicate the instincts de- rived from a former incarnation with kindness only Doubtless she was a wealthy gem collector in Rome or Athens-or Alexandria, more likely about the year 100 A. D."
 Paul Tarrant smiled skeptically. "Will you tell me how you arrive at your date so exactly, doctor?" he 1 asked.
 By the analogy of the lilac tree, y replied Doctor Immanuel. "The lilac blooms for two weeks in every fifty two-is that not so? Then we may say it's sleeping life is twenty-six times as long as it's life in physical form. Now, l if we take the normal human life to be seventy years, each human item , will reappear after an interval of about | 1920 years-shorter or longer accord ing to the individual idiosyncrasy, but more or less upon time. Hannibal, for | instance, whose discarnate life must have been peculiarly rich in memories, and therefore prolonged, was reborn as Napoleon after a little more than | 2,000 years. Cicero reappeared as Gladstone after some 1850 years; the fabulous Queen Semiramis after 2,000 years as Cleopatra, and after some | 1,750 more as Catherine II. of Russia. These mighty figures appear and re- appear through history with the regu- larity of comets, and, like them, are recurrent phenomena which flash through wondering world. We'll, then, some 1920 years ago your Helen Blythe was gem collector or lapidary or something similar in the classic world, and it is the ungratified desire for jewels which has made her klep- tomaniac today"
 Perhaps you would like to see her, doctor?" the millionaire suggested tol- erantly. T confess I am not con vinced as to the truth of your theo- ries, but should immeasurably like to know just how the ancient Romans set their rings"
 Doctor Immanuel accepted this seri- ously, and before we parted it was ar ranged that we two should visit Mr.