The Nazim's Jem

I had been ill with fever. They tel] me tbat it was a severe illness and that the outcome was for many days in donbt. Twice, they said, my feet pressed on the verge of the dark valley, and twice was I drawn back. I know little of this personally. For two weeks or more I was either delirions or nnconscious. Then, one bright May morning, I came back from the land of shadows. It seeraed to me, as I tey that my mind was unoatuf ally" acu.te J{ fan-! cied ihat my enfeeblsd'f piySiibai otradi tion accentuated the action of my brain. It seeined as if the rest I had given it - the rest, at least, from lucid action - had reinvigorated it. I remember that I threw a great deal of thought into the construction of the first connected sentence I addressed to my man. This is what I said: "Auy letters, George?" He started up hastily. "Letters, sir? Yes, sir, letters and a telegram." "Read the telegram," I said, af ter another spell of thonght. He tore open the yellow envelope. "Just heard of your illness. Start for home today. Mary. " Mary is my proinised wife. I recalled that she was at Colorado Springs with her invalid mother'when I feil ill. I looked at George. He must have read my questioa. He seemed to make a momentary calculation. "If all goes well, sir, she should be here today." Mary was coming. The thought acted on me like a tonic. I wanted to throw aside the blankets and leap to the floor. Godsl And I couldn't even raise my arm. "Get flowers, George," I murmured. "Let in the sunlight. Hide these bottles." He smiled and smoothed the blankets above me. "Everything shall be as presentable as possible, sir, " he said. As presentable as possible? That note of exception must mean me. Never mind, Mary was coming, Mary loved me too well to take offense at my changed appearance. "George," I said, "the world is still outside there, I suppose. Read the newspaper. " He read to me for half an hour or more, read tbe news just as it carne to hand - telegraph, local, political. For a time his voice has simply a lulling effect. Then I began to take notice of the substance of whát he read. When I had heárd all I wánted, I bade him stop and let the substance of his reading filter through my brain. As I strove to recall it all there was an item that seemed to hold my fancy in a peculiar way. It was a telegram which told that a nizam of far Hindustan had been robbed of an almost priceless diamond which it was understood he meant to jresent to Queen Victoria at the time of the comiug jubilee. This story, I say, seemed to fascinate me - the diamond of the nizam, filcbed from its oriental owner, gleaming mayhap from the dusky corner of some squalid hut when t should be eclipsing the jewels of a queen. And Mary was coming. What a pft for Mary that diamond would be - Mary, my queen! There was a strange aumming in my head, but out of it all carne one clear thought - I would get ;hat diamond and give it to Mary. When I had determined on this, I seemed to grow cool and calculating. I realzed how helpless I was pbysically, but my will power, tbank God, was still eft me. I would concéntrate my mind on the thief. I would will him to come o me. I had read somewhere that the soul n a body purified by the fire of disease ises above the restrictions of common lay. Wasi not my soul so purified? I ixed my thought upon the nizam 's diamond. Red clouds rolling rapidly; out of hem a touch of blue sky, a whirl of yelow dust, a sun tbat beat down fiercely 'rom midheaven; thewallsof a city, a ity with queer minarets and towers, nd strange palaces; a city with a huge gateway through which passed in and out a motley array of strange garbed people; bullocks and carts, and then a luin bering elephant, and red coated soldiers, and white turbaned men with brown faces. And the air was hot and dry, and a strange odor oame to my nostrils. Then in a corner by the huge portals I noted a crouchiug figure - a turbaned native with strange rings in his ears and an eye that gleamed with a startling whiteness. And on him my thought centered. Then he aróse from his bent position and slunk forth. As he passed amid the snarling dogs that fought and yelped beyond the city walk I noticed that in the folds of his garments he held a long, keen knife. Ever and anon he looked over his shonlder as he sloached along. And the snn glared, and the desert spread béfore hito, and the dust arose in yellow puffs. Then came two native soldiers riding on weary horses, and they cried ont at sight of the footman. And when they dismounted to seize him the knife flashed, and one soldier lay silent at his f eet, and the other fled across the gleaming desert, and the knife was red. There were clouds and confnsed scene3, and out from them all the man with the red fenife presaed on, in his e.ves a strange ligbt, a gleam, half terror, half desperation, the look of a baunted man, wbose fate impela him forward. Tben another city, a city of whitewashed walls and many huts and few palaces and stretchesof the sea and the 111 ast e of ships. The swish of waves, and the roaring of the wind, and the rattle of cordage, and in the midst of the ship the brown faced man calmly indifferent to the tempest. More cloniö and long blanks of cbaotic nothingness. My eyes flnd themselves gazing at tbe wall of my room, and presently it opens and throngh it steps the man who crouched by the city gafes. Step by step he comes to my bedside, and his eye glistens and bis knife is red, and my eye never leaves his. Then he pauses and bends low with his arms ontstretched. "Sahib, " he murmura, and his voice is singularly low and gentle, "I ara here." "Tbe diamond 1" I hoarsely mnrmur. He removes his turban and slowly unwinds its many folds. As he does so the room seems fllled with the rnstle of garments, and a strange, eweet perfume comes to me. There are whispers, too, and a sound like a stifled sob. Slowly the stránger ünfolds bis tnrban, and euddenly out of it leaps a great white pebble. He lifts it before. me betwist his lean brown thumb and forefinger, and I know that in his other hand he holds the red knife, "The diamond of the nizam, sahib," he murniurs. As he speaks a sudden ray of sunHght falls upon the white pebble and a mighty glory seems to fill the room. My eyelids drop before that glare. I see the browD face of the Indian bend lower. I eee his fingers clutching at his knife. The room grows dark and yet darkcr. I seera to be slipping away, slipping away. "John!" Is that my name? Io somebody calling me? What is this that holds my hand and draws me back? No, no; let me go. "John!" Surely somebody is calling me. I open my eyes slowly, so slowly. Across thelevel of my bed Isee the face of George leauing forward, nis features in the shadow, his eyes gleaming with frightened anxiety, in his hancfa tiny medicine glass that catches a dazzling ray of suulight. Somebody else is there, somebody who holds my hand tightly, somebody who calis again: "John, dear!" I raise my eyes a little higher. Another face is bending over me, a white, tear stained face. "John!" It is Mary. And so 1 came back. - W. E. Rose in Cleveland Plain Dealer.