The man began to mutter something to himself and very carefully took off the silk cover, revealing a wonderfully carved ivory box. He opened the gold-hinged lid and took out a silver case. He opened that and from it took a gold box elaborately though crudely chased. He opened the gold box and within it, oh a little white-velvet pad, was a cross of dull gold curiously engraved. He put the pad, with the cross on it, in the middle of the seven lights. On the arms of the cross and at the intersection Tom saw seven wonderful emeralds remarkable as to size, beautiful as to color.
“Look at it, Mr. Merriwether. It is priceless. The gems alone are worth a king's ransom. If you consider it merely as a piece of ancient art there is no telling what a man like Mr. W. H. Garrettson would not give for it. And as a talisman, with its tried wonder-working powers, there is, of course, not enough money in all the world to pay for it.”
Tom stretched his hand toward it.
“Please! Do not touch it, I beg,” said the man, in a voice in which the alarm was so evident that Tom drew his hand back as though he had seen a cobra on the table. “Not yet! Not yet!” said the man. “It is the most wonderful object in existence. It is a cross that antedates Christ!”
“Really?”
“It is obviously of a much earlier period than the Messiah. Great scholars have thought it a legend, but here it is before you. It belonged to Apollonius of Tyana, the wonder-worker. Philostratus, who wrote the life of that great man, does not mention this talisman; he dared not! Apollonius, who to this day is not known ever to have died, gave it to a disciple, who gave it to a friend.”
Tom looked interested.
“We know who has owned it. It was worn by Arcadius in the fifth century. The Goths took it and Alaric gave it to the daughter of his most trusted captain, who commanded his citadel of Carcassonne. Clovis, a hundred years later, secured it at the sack of Toulouse. We have records of its having been praised by Eligius, the famous jeweler of Dagobert, in the seventh century. It was included in the famous treasures of Charlemagne. It went to Palestine during the first and third crusades—the first time carried by a maid who loved a knight who did not love her. She went as his squire, he not suspecting her sex until they were safely back in France, when he married her. It is a wonderful talisman. The emeralds came from Mount Zabara. They have the power to drive away the evil spirits and also to preserve the chastity of the wearer. Moreover, they give the power to foretell events. Apollonius did—time and again. This is historically true. But alone he, of all the men who have owned it, never had a love-affair; hence his clairvoyance. I have bored you. Forgive me!”
“Not at all. I was interested. It is all so—er—so—”
“Incredible—yes! There is no reason why you should believe it. It is of no consequence whether you think me a lunatic or a charlatan.”