sband is really a very fine surgeon."

The other bowed his head.

"I must tell you," he said, "you will not be able to make it ring.
Only the original clapper, carved from the same block of rose crystal,
will ring it. That is why my father separated them."

Again he hesitated.

"I have told you only half of what my father told me. He said that,
though it defeats death, Death can not be defeated. Robbed of his
chosen victim, he takes another in his place. Thus when the bell was
used in the temple of its origin--let us say when a high priest or a
chief had died--a slave or servant was placed handy for Death to take
when he had been forced to relinquish his grasp upon the important
one."

He smiled, shook his head.

"There," he said. "A preposterous story. Now if you wish it, the bell
is ten dollars. Plus, of course, sales tax."

"The story alone is worth more," Dr. Williams declared. "I think we'd
better have it sent, hadn't we, Edith? It'll be safer in the mail than
in our suitcase."

"Sent?" His wife seemed to come out of some deep feminine meditation.
"Oh, of course. And as for its not ringing--I shall make it ring. I
know I shall."

"If the story is true," Mark Williams murmured, "I hope not...."

* * * * *

The package came on a Saturday morning, when Mark Williams was
catching up on the latest medical publications in his untidy,
book-lined study. He heard Edith unwrapping paper in the hall outside.
Then she came in with the rose-crystal bell in her hands.

"Mark, it's here!" she said. "Now to make it ring."

She plumped herself down beside his desk. He took the bell and reached
for a silver pencil.

"Just for the sake of curiosity," he remarked, "and not because I
believe that delightful sales talk we were given, let's see if it will
ring when I tap. It should, you know."

He tapped the lip of the bell. A muted _thunk_ was the only response.
Then he tried with a coin, a paper knife, and the bottom of a glass.
In each instance the resulting sound was nothing like a bell ringing.

"If you've finished, Mark," Edith said then, with feminine tolerance,
"let me show you how it's done."

"Gladly," her husband agreed. She took the bell and turned away for a
moment. Then she shook the bell vigorously. A clear, sweet ringing
shivered through the room--so thin and etherial that small involuntary
shivers crawled up his spine.

"Good Lord!" he exclaimed. "How did you do that