Its glossy, pitchlike surface, on the end that had been exposed from the wall, was all worn and polished smooth by innumerable caresses from Moslem hands and lips.
"Very hygienic," the Master thought.

"If there was ever a finer way devised for spreading the plague and other Oriental diseases, I can't very well imagine what it could be!" A bit of the stone had been broken off by Leclair's crowbar.

The Master's trained, scientific eye saw, by the brightly sparkling, grayish section of the break, that iron and nickel formed the chief elements of the stone.

Its dimensions, though its irregular form made these hard to come by, seemed about two and a half feet in length, by about seven or eight inches in breadth and thickness.

Its weight, as the Master stood up and lifted it, must have been about two hundred pounds.