Page:Mehalah 1920.djvu/23

Rh She submitted reluctantly, and crept out of the room to fetch the article demanded of her.

When she returned, she found Mehalah standing before the fire with her back to the embers, and her hands knitted behind her, looking at the floor, lost in thought.

"There is it," grumbled the old woman. "But I don't like to part with it; and it must not go out of the family. Keep it yourself, Mehalah, and give it away to none."

The girl took the coin. It was a large silver token, the size of a crown, bearing on the face a figure of Mars in armour, with shield and brandished sword, between the zodiacal signs of the Ram and the Scorpion.

The reverse was gilt, and represented a square divided into five-and-twenty smaller squares, each containing a number, so that the sum in each row, taken either vertically or horizontally, was sixty-five. The medal was undoubtedly foreign. Theophrastus Paracelsus, in his Archidoxa, published in the year 1572, describes some such talisman, gives instructions for its casting, and says: "This seal or token gives him who carries it about him strength and security and victory in all battles, protection in all perils. It enables him to overcome his enemies and counteract their plots."

The medal held by the girl belonged to the sixteenth century. Neither she nor her mother had ever heard of Paracelsus, and knew nothing of his Archidoxa. The figures on the face passed their comprehension. The mystery of the square on the reverse had never been discovered by them. They knew only that the token was a charm, and that family tradition held it to secure the wearer against sudden death by violence.

A hole was drilled through the piece, and a strong silver ring inserted. A broad silk riband of faded blue passed through the ring, so that the medal might be worn about the neck. For a few moments Mehalah studied the mysterious figures by the fire-light, then flung the riband round her neck, and hid the coin and its perplexing symbols in her bosom.

"I must light a candle," she said; then she stopped by the table on her way across the room, and took up the glass upon it.