Unfortunately, neither Klein nor any other European would see it again intact. For the elaborate collection arrangements so roused the Bedouins' suspicions that they demanded ten times the original price. Then, while the negotiations were still in progress, they attacked an Arab sent to make a paper 'squeeze' of the tablet's inscription. This individual only just managed to snatch the paper away before fleeing for his life. Hearing that local Turkish troops were about to be sent against them, the Bedouin angrily threw the tablet onto a fire and doused it with cold water, shattering it into numerous pieces which they divided among them. Ultimately, it took patient bargaining on the part of French scholar Charles Clermont-Ganneau and Britain's Captain Charles Warren (of Warren's Shaft), before fifty-seven fragments representing two-thirds of the original were eventually retrieved. Now safely in the Louvre, Paris, the portions that are still missing have fortunately been almost completely reconstructed thanks to the paper 'squeeze'.  The efforts of Clermont-Ganneau and Warren proved worthwhile. For even though the Moabite stone has now been available to scholars for more than a century, its thirty-four lines of 9th-century BC Canaanitic/old Hebrew script still represent one of the oldest, longest and most Biblically-meaningful inscriptions ever discovered anywhere in and around present-day Israel. As the key portions of the text read: I am Mesha, son of Chemosh . . . , king of Moab, the Dibonite. My father reigned over Moab thirty years and I reigned after my father. And I made this high place for Chemosh in Qorchah .. ., for he saved me from all kings and caused me to triumph over my enemies. Omri, king of Israel had oppressed Moab for many days, for Chemosh was angry with his land [i.e. the people of Moab]. And his [i.e. Omri's] son succeeded him, and he also said: (I will oppress Moab.' In my days he spoke [thus], but I have triumphed over him and his house, and Israel has perished forever. . . . And I built Baal-meon, and made a reservoir in it, and buil[t] Qiryathan [Kir-haraseth]. Now the men of Gad had dwelt in the land of Ataroth from of old, and the king of Israel had built Ataroth for them, but I fought against the city, took it, and smote all the people . . . And Chemosh said to me, 'Go, take Nebo from Israel,' and I went by night, and fought against it. . . , and took it and smote all of them, 7000 men, [boys], women, [girl]s and maidservants . . . And I took from there th[e ves]sels ofYahweh and dragged them before Chemosh.'