Lost trumpet

THE LOST TRUMPET
33
nection with this event. You may have guessed
I’m a Jew ?”
“Not at all. He thought you were a Tasmanian
aboriginal.”
This was Marrot. Huebsch turned his head, con¬
sidered his colleague and the interpolation, smiled
slowly and vastly. “Well, anyway, Jew I am, and
was once pretty conversant with the legendary
stuff about the overthrow of Jericho. The result of
our excavation raised some fuss, both inside and
outside archaeological circles. We had about two
tons of letters from all parts of the world on the
subject of tumbling walls ”
Marrot chuckled reminiscently. “The best was a
circular addressed to a Mr. Wall from some kidney-
cure people—about taking pills if one suffered from
dizziness.”
“Yes. Well, a pretty mixed lot it was, and sent
by folk with all kinds of faddist notions. But there
was one letter which interested us both. It came from a
co-racial of mine in Bokhara—a Samarcand Jew whose
family has been resident there since the Dispersion.
“The letter was only an introductory to some¬
thing else—the copy of a lengthy sheepskin docu¬
ment extracted from his family archives. Well, to
make short work of a long story—and I’ll miss
you out all about my wrestlings to decipher and
transliterate bad mediaeval Hebrew—this document
purported to tell of the later fortunes of Jericho’s
conqueror and the magical rams’ horns which helped
to overthrow the Jericho walls.”
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