The Wreck of the South Pole and Other Strange Tales — page 95: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

88 The Indestructible Story. course that branded him with infamy? The secret archives of Rome mention that 1n his possession was a curious coin with certain peculiar marks upon it. Those marks are upon the coin in my possession, and the curse fell upon him even more heavily than it did upon me. Within a year after Julian, the Christian, found that an- cient piece in the catacombs of Rome he had become Julian, the Apostate. From the time of Julian the records give a long list of names—some well known, others mere names; some Ro- man and Italian, others German, Spanish and French; showing that the coin had traveled much. In 1100 it found its way to England, and for years it remained in an abbey, until at last it came into the possession of Thomas a’ Becket. History tells how the good man met his false charges, his imprisonment and death. Again the-coin sinks into obscurity, to rise into greater disaster, after a silence of fifty years. In 1871 the records say it was given to Henry II. of England, and remained in his cabinet dur- ing those eighteen bitter years of his life—years marked by revolt after revolt of his own sons, until at last the re- bellion of his youngest broke the father’s heart. Again it is traced back to Italy ; not only to Italy, but to Rome; not only to Rome, but to the Vatican itself. By some means it found its way to the library of Pope Boniface VIII. Is it needless to recount how he was imprisoned, insulted and killed by Philip the Fair, of France? And note how the curse rested upon his successors as long as it remained in their possession. Benedict IX. lived but a few months, Gomichook