ink, than because he could not guess the
answer. He is an omnivorous reader, and there is not much
recorded of the Near East that he does not know.

"Don't you know your history? You know, of course, that after
King Solomon died the Jews divided into two kingdoms. The
latter-day Jews speak of themselves as Israelites, but they are
nothing of the kind; they are Judah-ites. The tribe of Judah
remained in Jerusalem, forming one small kingdom; their
descendants are the Jews of today. Part of the tribe of Benjamin
stayed with them. The other seceding ten tribes called
themselves the kingdom of Israel."

"Everybody knows that," said Grim. "What of it?"

"Well, the Assyrians came down and conquered the kingdom of
Israel--marched all the Israelites away into captivity--and they
vanished out of history. From that day to this their Book of
Chronicles, so often referred to in the Old Testament, has never
been seen nor heard of."

"Of course not," said Grim. "The King of Assyria used it to wipe
his razor on when he was through shaving every morning."

"Ach! You joke again; but I tell you I am not joking. Such
people as those Hebrews are naturally secretive and so proud that
they wrote down for posterity all the doings of their puny kings,
would never have let their records fall into the hands of the
Assyrians. They themselves were marched away in slave-gangs, but
they left their Book behind them, safely hidden. Be sure of it!
Ten years ago I found a manuscript in the place they now call
Nablus, which in those days was Schechem. Schechem was the
capital of the Kingdom of Israel, just as Jerusalem was the
capital of the Kingdom of Judah, or the Jews. I sold that
manuscript for a good price after I had photographed it. The
idiots to whom I sold it--historians they call themselves!--value
it only as a relic of antiquity. I made a digest of it--analyzed
it--studied it--compared it with other authentic facts in my
possession--and came to the definite conclusion that I hold the
clue to the whereabouts of that lost Book of Chronicles."

"Let's see the photograph," Grim suggested.

"It has been impounded with other so-called 'enemy property' by
your friends the British. I suppose they thought the German
General Staff might get hold of it and conquer the Suez Canal!
But what good would the sight of it do? You couldn't understand
a word of it. It convinced me, after months of study, that when
the Ten Tribes w