ablaze and make thee as a god among thy people. Ask this gift,
O Frank, and it shall be granted thee! For the mere asking, this
treasure shall be thine!"

The Master shook his head. Deeply as he understood the incalculable
value of the lost books of antiquity, he well knew that to offer his
Legion such a booty would be all in vain. Men who have suffered and
bled, risked all, seen their comrades die, and even now stand in
the shadow of death--hoping some vast, tangible loot--are not proper
material for discussion of literary values.

"_Yafta Allah!_" the Master exclaimed, with emphasis equal to the
Olema's. "No, Bara Miyan, this cannot be."

"Our dancing and singing maidens are like a flame of Paradise. Their
enchantments make the heart of man glad with perpetual springtime.
Choose, O Frank, two handmaids for thyself and for each of thy men,
and let them be yours to go with you to your own country and to be
your chattels and your sweet delights!"

The eyes of "Captain Alden" narrowed with sudden, painful emotion as
she peered at the Master. With some smattering of Arabic, she may have
caught something of the sense of this offer. But the Master, unmoved
by this second offer of Olema's, merely shook his head again, saying:

"No, Bara Miyan. Though thy women be fair as the dawn over the Sea of
Oman, and soft-eyed as the gazelles in the oasis of the _Wady el
Ward_ (Vale of Flowers), not for us are they. We seek other rewards.
Therefore will I ask thee still another question."

"Thy question shall be answered, O Frank!"

"Is it true that the Caliph el Walid, in Hegira 88, sent forty
camel-loads of cut jewels to Mecca?"

"That is true."

"And that, later, all those jewels were brought hither?"

"Even so! It is also true that two Franks in Hegira 550, digged a
tunnel into the Meccan treasury from a house they had hired in the
guise of Egyptian _Hujjaj_. They were both beheaded, White Sheik, and
their bodies were burned to ashes."

"No doubt," the Master answered, nonchalantly. "But they had brought
no rich gifts to the Meccans. Therefore, now speaking of these forty
camel-loads of cut jewels, O Bara Miyan--"

"It is in thy mind to ask for those, White Sheik?"

"Allah giveth thee two hearts, Bara Miyan, as well as the riches of
Karun. Surely, 'the generous man is Allah's friend,' and thy hand is
not tied up."[1]

[Footnote 1: "To have two hearts" (_dhu'kulbein_) signifies to be
prudent, wise. Karun is the Arabic Croesus. "Thy hand is tied up" is
equivalent to calling a man niggardly.]

The Olema, a quick decision gleaming in his eyes--though what that
decision might be, who could tell?--put down the amber mouthpiece and
with an eloquent, lean hand gestured toward a silk-curtained doorway
at the right of the vast hall.

"Come with me, then, White Sheik!" said he, arising and beckoning his
white-robed sub-chiefs. He raised a finger in signal to the Maghrabis,
though what the signal might mean, the Legionaries could not know.
"Come, with all thy men. And, by Allah! I will show thee the things
whereof thou dost speak to me. I will show thee all these things--and
others!

"_Come_!"

In silence the Legionaries followed old Bara Miyan through the
curtained doorway; and after them came the sub-chiefs. The Maghrabi
stranglers, noiseless and bare-footed, fell in behind; a long ominous
line of black human brutes, seeming hardly above the intellectual
level of so many gorillas.

Stout-hearted as the Legionaries were, a kind of numbing oppression
was closing in upon them. City battlements and double walls of inner
citadel, then massive gates and now again more doors that closed
behind them, intervened between them and even the perilous liberty of
the plain of El Barr. And, in addition to all this, some hundreds of
thousands of Arabs, waiting without, effectually surrounded them, and
the Maghrabi men cast their black shadow, threatening and ominous,
over the already somber enough canvas.

A web, they all felt, was closing about them that only chance and
boldness could unravel. Everything now hung on the word of an aged
fanatic, who for any fancied breach of the Oath of Salt might deliver
them to slavery, torture, death.

"Remember, men," the Master warned his men as they penetrated the
dim, golden-walled passage also lighted with sandal-oil
_mash'als_--"remember the mercy-bullets. If it comes to war, none of
us must be taken prisoner!"

To the Olema he exclaimed, in suave tones:

"_Dakhilak, Ya Shayk!_ (Under thy protection, O Sheik!) Let not the
laws of hospitality or the Oath of Salt be forgotten!"

The Olema only smiled oddly, in the dim and perfumed obscurity of the
passageway, along which the slither of the many sandaled feet on
the gold pavement made a soft, creeping sound. Nothing more was
said--except for some grumbled mouthings of Bohannan--during the next
few minutes.

The passage seemed enormously long to the Master as, flanked by
Leclair, "Captain Alden," and the major, he peered curiously at its
smooth, dull-yellow walls all chased with geometrical patterns picked
out in silver and copper, between the dull-hued tapestries, and
banded with long extracts from the Koran inlaid in Tumar characters of
mother-of-pearl.

Several turnings, and three flights of steps descending through the
solid gold "dyke" that ran down into the bowels of the earth no
one could even guess how far, served still more to confuse the
Legionaries' sense of direction and to increase their conviction that,
in case of any outbreak of hostilities, they would find themselves
trapped more helplessly than rats in a cage.

It is no aspersion on their bravery to say that more than one among
them had already begun inwardly to curse this wild-goose chase
into Jannati Shahr. It all had now begun to assume absolutely the
appearance of a well-formulated plan of treachery. Even the Master
gave recognition to this appearance, by saying again: "Be ready for
a quick draw. But whatever you do, don't be the aggressor. Watch your
step!"

The passage suddenly reached its end. Another heavy door of the yellow
metal swung back, and all issued into a hall even more vast than the
one they had quitted.

No windows here admitted light. The air, though pure enough as from
some hidden source of ventilation, hung dead and heavy. Not even the
censers, depending from the dim roof, far above, could freshen it;
nor could the cressets' light make more than a kind of ghostly aura
through the gloom.

By this dim half-illumination the Master beheld, there before him in
the middle of the tremendous golden pavement, a strange,
pyramidal object rising four-square in the shape of an equilateral
triangle--just such a triangle as was formed by the locations of
Mecca, Bab el Mandeb, and El Barr.

This pyramid, polished and elaborately engraved, towered some ninety
feet above the floor. It was pierced by numbers of openings, like the
entrances to galleries; and up the smooth face nearest the entrance to
the hall, a stairway about ten feet wide mounted toward the apex.

Completely finished all save the upper part, which still remained
truncated, the golden pyramid gleamed dully in the vague light, a
thing of awe and wonder, grimly beautiful, fearsome to gaze up at. For
some unknown reason, as the Legionaries grouped themselves about their
Master, an uncanny influence seemed to emanate from this singular
object. All remained silent, as the Olema, an enigmatic smile on his
thin, bearded lips, raised a hand toward the pyramid.

"This thing, O Frank, thou shouldst see," he remarked dryly. "Above
all, the inner chambers. Wilt thou go with me?"

"I will go," the Master answered. "Lead the way!"

The Olema beckoned one of the Maghrabis, who delivered a torch of some
clear-burning, resinous, and perfumed material into his hand.

"Come," bade the old man, and gestured toward the steps of gold.

Together, in silence, they mounted toward the dim, high-arched
roof. From near the top, the Master, glancing down, could see the
white-robed mass of the Arabs, the small, compact group of his own
men; and, behind them all, the dim, black lines of the stranglers. But
already the Olema was gesturing for him to enter the highest of the
galleries.

Into this, carved in the virgin metal, both made their way. The
torchlight flung strange, wavering gleams on smooth walls niched with
dark embrasures. At the further end of the passage, the Olema stopped.

"Here is a new trophy, just added to all that Allah hath placed in our
hands," said he, gravely. "There are some three-and-twenty places yet
left, to fill. Wilt thou see the new trophy?"

The Master nodded silently. Raising the torch, the Olema thrust it
into one of the embrasures. There the Master beheld a human skull.

The empty eye-sockets, peering out at him, seemed to hold a malevolent
malice. That the skull had been but freshly cleaned, was obvious.

"Abd el Rahman?" asked the Master.

"Yea, the Apostate," answered Bara Miyan. "At last, Allah hath
delivered him to us of El Barr."

"Thou hast used a heavy hand on the Apostate, O Sheik."

"We of Jannati Shahr do not anoint rats' heads with jasmine oil. Tell
me, Frank, how many men hast thou?"

"Three-and-twenty, is it not so?"

"Yea, it is so. Tell me, Bara Miyan, this whole pyramid--"

"Skulls, yea."

"This is the Pyramid of Ayeshah that I have heard strange tales of?"
the Master demanded, feeling even his hard nerves quiver.

"The Pyramid of Ayeshah."

"No myth, then, but reality," the Master commented, fascinated in
spite of himself. "Even as the famous Tower of Skulls at Jerba, in
Tunis!"

"Thou hast said it, O Frank. Here be more than ten-score thousand
skulls of the enemies of Islam, of blasphemers against the Prophet, of
those who have penetrated the Empty Abodes, of those who have sought
to carry gold from El Barr. It is nearly done, this pyramid. But there
still remain three-and-twenty vacant places to be filled."

For a long minute, the eyes of the Master and of Bara Miyan met, in
silence, with the torch-flare glinting strange lights from them. Then
the Olema spoke.

"Hast thou seen enough?" demanded he.

"Mine eyes are filled."

"And dost thou still ask rewards of gold?"

"Nay, it is as I have already told thee; let the cut jewels of the
Caliph el Walid suffice!"

"It is well spoken. Let us descend."

In silence, again, they left the gruesome gallery and went down the
stairway with the Olema's torch leaving vague, fantastic wreaths of
odorous smoke curling up along the polished, dull-yellow slant of the
pyramid. Back on the floor again, the Master said to his men:

"This pyramid is filled with skulls of men who have tried to carry
gold from El Barr. For the present, we must dismiss gold from our
minds. Common prudence dictates that we abandon all idea of gold, take
whatever reward we can get, and leave this city at once.

"The gold is of no importance, whatever. On the way back over the
outer foothills of the Iron Mountains, many outcrops of gold exist.
_Nissr_ can poise above some of these; and a few hours' labor will
load her with all the gold we can carry. There can be no sense in
trying to get any here. It would simply add to our peril.

"Everything is therefore quite satisfactory. But watch every move. If
nothing breaks, in two hours from now we should be on our way. Again
I caution you all, keep silent and make no move without my orders. The
prize is at our very finger-tips. So long as we shed no blood and as
nothing happens to the Myzab and the Black Stone, we are safe. But
remember--_be careful!_"

The Olema touched him on the elbow.

"Now," the old man asked, "now, O Frank, wouldst thou see the cut
jewels of the Caliph el Walid?"

"Even so!"

"Come, then!" And Bara Miyan gestured toward another door that led, at
the left, out of the Chamber of the Pyramid.

Again the strange procession formed itself, as before, with the
gorilla-like Maghrabi stranglers a rear guard. A few minutes through
still another passage in the gold brought them to a door of ebony,
banded with silver. No door of gold, it seemed, sufficed for this
chamber they were about to enter. Stronger materials were needed here.

This door, like the others, swung silently on its massive hinges.

"Come, O Master of the fighting-men of Feringistan!" exclaimed the
Olema. "In Allah's name, take of the gifts that I have already offered
thee, and then in peace depart!"

Before the Master could reply, a shuddering concussion shivered
through the solid gold all about them. The tremor of this shock, like
that of an earthquake, trembled the cressets on the walls and made the
huge ebony door, ajar into a dim-lighted hall, groan on its hinges.

Stupefied, Legionaries and Arabs alike, stared silently under the
vague gleam of the torches.

Then, far and faint, as though coming along tortuous passages from
distances above, a muffled concussion smote their ears. The shock of
the air-wave was distinctly felt, eloquent of the catastrophe that in
a second of time had shattered every plan and hope.

As if an echo of that thunderous, far explosion, a faint wailing of
voices--echoing from very far above--drifted eerily along the passage;
voices in blended rage and fear, in hate, agony, despair.

"God above--!" the major gulped. "Captain Alden" whipped her pistol
from its holster, not a fraction of a second before the Master's
leaped into his hand. The torchlight flickered on Leclair's
service-revolver, and was reflected on the guns of every Legionary.

"If that's the explosive," Bohannan cried, "faith, we're in for it!
_Is_ it the explosive that's blown Hell out o' the Black Stone?"

A wild cry echoed down the passage. The Olema, his face suddenly
distorted with a passion of hate, snatched a pistol from beneath his
burnous.

"The dogs of Feringistan have spat on all Islam!" he screamed, in a
shrill, horrible voice. "The Black Stone is no more! Vengeance on the
unbelieving dogs! _Allah il Allah!_ Kill, kill, and let no dog escape!

"Sons of the Prophet! Slay me these dogs! Kill!"




CHAPTER XLIII


WAR IN THE DEPTHS

Horrible, unreal as a fever-born nightmare in its sudden frenzy, the
Arab's attack drove in at them. The golden passageway flung from wall
to wall screams, curses in shrill barbaric voices, clangor of steel
whirled from scabbards, echoes of shots loud-roaring in that narrow
space.

Bara Miyan's pistol, struck up by the woman's hand, spat fire over the
Master's head just as the Olema himself went down with blood spurting
from a jugular severed by the major's bullet. The Olema's gaudy
burnous crimsoned swiftly.

"Got _him_!" shouted Bohannan, firing again, again, into the tangle of
sub-chiefs and Maghrabi men. Adams pitched forward, cleft to the chin
by a simitar.

The firing leaped to point-blank uproar, on both sides. The men of
Jannati Shahr numbered more pistols, but the Legionaries had quicker
firers. Arabs, Legionaries, Maghrabis alike falling in a tumult of raw
passions, disappeared under trampling feet.

Deafening grew the uproar of howls, curses, shots. The smell of dust
and blood mingled with the aromatic perfume of the cressets.

The Master was shouting something, as he emptied his automatic into
the pack of white-robed bodies, snarling brown faces, waving arms. But
what he was commanding, who could tell?

Like a storm-wave flinging froth ashore, the rush of the Moslems
drove the Legionaries--fewer now--back into the treasure-chamber. The
Master, violent hands on "Captain Alden," swung her back, away; thrust
her behind him. Her eyes gleamed through the mask as she still fired.
The Master heard her laugh.

From dimness of gloom, within the doorway, two vague figures rained
dagger-blows. Janina, mortally stabbed, practically blew the head off
one of these door-keepers.

Cracowicz got the other with a blow from the butt of his empty
pistol--a blow that crushed in the right temporal bone. Then he, too,
and three others, fell and died.

Outside, in the passage, the Maghrabis were wringing the necks of the
wounded white men. The dull sound of crushed and broken bones blent
with the turmoil.

"_The door--shut the door!_"

The Master's voice penetrated even this Hell-tumult. The Master flung
himself against the door, and others with him.

The very frenzy of the attack defeated the Arab's object, for it drove
the survivors back into the treasure-crypt. And in the narrow doorway
the white men could for a moment hold back the howling tides of fury.

With cold lead, butts, naked fists, the remaining Legionaries smashed
a little clearance-room, corpse-heaped. They stumbled, fought, fell
into the crypt.

The heavy door, swung by panting, sweating men--while others fired
through the narrowing aperture--groaned shut on massive hinges.

As the space narrowed, frenzy broke loose. Arabs and Maghrabis crawled
and struggled over bodies, flung themselves to sure immolation in the
doorway. As fast as they fell, the Legionaries dragged them inside.
The place became an infernal shambles, slippery, crimson, unreal with
horror.

For one fate-heavy moment, the tides of war hung even. Furiously the
remaining Legionaries toiled with straining muscles, swelling veins,
panting lungs, to force the door shut, against the shrieking, frenzied
drive of Moslem fanatics lashed into fury by the _thar_, the feud of
blood.

"Captain Alden" turned the tide. She snatched down one of the copper
lamps that hung by chains from the dim ceiling of the treasure-crypt.
Over the heads of the Legionaries she flung blazing sandal-oil out
upon the white-robed jam of madmen.

The flaming oil flared up along those thin, white robes. It dripped on
wounded and on dead. Wild howls of anguish pierced the tumult. In the
minute of confusion, the door boomed shut. Bohannan dropped a heavy
teakwood bar into staples of bronze.

"God!" he panted, his right eye misted with blood from a jagged cut
on the brow. Shrieks of rage, from without, were answered by jeers and
shouts of exultation from the Legionaries.

"_Nom de Dieu!_" gasped Leclair. His neck was blackened with a
powder burn, and the tunic was ripped clean off him. Not one of the
Legionaries had uniforms completely whole. Hardly half of them still
kept their slippers.

Torn, barefooted, burned, bleeding, decimated, they still laughed.
Wild gibes penetrated the door of the treasure-crypt, against which
the mad attack was already beginning to clash and thunder.

"Faith, but this is a grand fight!" the major exulted. "It's
Donnybrook with trimmings!" He waved his big fists enthusiastically on
high, and blinked his one good eye. "If a man can die this way, sure,
what's the use o' living?"

"Steady men! Steady!" the Master cautioned, reloading his gun. "No
time, now, for shouting. Load up! This fight's only begun!"

Already, as they recharged their weapons, the door was groaning under
the frantic attack of the Arabs and Maghrabis. Wild curses, howls to
Allah and to the Prophet, came in dull confusion through the massive
plates. A hail of blows besieged them. The bronze staples began to
bend.

"Come, men!" commanded the Master. "No chance to defend this position.
They'll be in, directly. There are thousands of them in reserve! Away
from here!"

"Where the devil _to_?" demanded the major, defiantly. "Hang to
it--give 'em blue Hell as they come through!"

The Master seized and flung him back.

"If you're so keen on dying," he cried, "you can die right now, for
insubordination! Back, away from here, you idiot!"

The major obeyed. The others followed. Already the door was
creaking, giving, as the Legionaries--now hardly more than a dozen in
number--began the first steps of their retreat, that should rank in
history with that of Xenophon's historic Ten Thousand.

The Greeks had all of God's outdoors for their maneuvers. These
Legionaries had nothing but dark pits and runways, unexplored, in the
bowels of a huge, fanatic city. Thus, their retreat was harder. But
with courage unshaken, they turned their backs on the yielding door,
and set their faces toward darkness and the unknown.

Two of their number lay dead inside this chamber where the Legionaries
now were. Nothing could be done for them; the bodies simply had to be
abandoned where they lay. Eight were dead in the passage outside the
chamber, their corpses mingled with those of Arabs and Maghrabis.

In the chamber, as the Master glanced back, he could see a heap of
bodies round the door. These bodies of attackers who had been pulled
inside and butchered, made a glad sight to the Master. He laughed
grimly.

"We're more than even with them, so far," he exulted. "We've beaten
them, so far! The rest will get us, all right enough, but Jannati
Shahr will remember the coming of the white men!"

The survivors--the Master, Bohannan, "Captain Alden," and Leclair and
nine others--were in evil case, as they trailed down the low-roofed
chamber lighted with copper lamps. More than half bore wounds.
Some showed bleeding faces, others limp arms; still others hobbled
painfully, leaving bloody trails on the floor of dull gold. Curses on
the Arabs echoed in various tongues. This first encounter had taken
frightful toll of the Legion.

But every heart that still lived was bold and high. Not one of the
little party entertained the slightest hope of surviving or of ever
beholding the light of day. Still, not one uttered any word of despair
or suggestion of surrender.

Everything but a fight to the finish was forgotten. Only one man even
thought of _Nissr_ and of what probably had happened out there on the
plain. This man was Leclair.

"_Dieu_!" he grunted. "An accident, eh? Something must have gone
wrong--or did the brown devils attack? I hope our men outside
made good slaughter of these Moslem pigs, before they died. Eh, my
Captain?"

"Well?"

"Is it not possible that _Nissr_ and our men still live? That they
will presently bombard the city? That they may rescue us?"

The Master shook his head.

"They may live," he answered, "but as for rescuing us--" His gesture
completed the idea. Suddenly he pointed.

"See!" he cried. "Another door!"




CHAPTER XLIV


INTO THE JEWEL-CRYPT

It was time some exit should be discovered. The tumult had notably
increased, at the barred entrance. The staples could not hold, much
longer.


The Legionaries pressed forward. At the far end of the chamber,
another door was indeed visible; smaller than the first, low, almost
square, and let into a deep recess in the elaborately carved wall of
gold.

Barefooted, in their socks, or some still in slippers, they reached
this door. A little silence fell on them, as they inspected it.
One man coughed, spitting blood. Another wheezed, with painful
respiration. The smell of sweat and blood sickened the air.

"That's some door, all right!" judged Bohannan, peering at its dark
wood, heavily banded with iron. "Faith, but they've got a padlock on
that, big enough to hold the Pearly Gates!"

"It is only a question, now, of the key," put in Leclair, with French
precision.

"Faith, _here's_ a trap!" the Irishman continued. "A trap, for you!
And thirteen rats in it! Lucky, eh?"

"In Jananti Shahr," the memory of a sentence flashed to the Master,
"we do not anoint rats' heads with jasmine oil!" But all he said was:
"Light, here! Bring lamps!"

Three Legionaries obeyed. The flare of the crude wicks, up along the
door, showed its tremendous solidity.

"A little of our explosive would do this business," the Master
declared. "But it's obvious nothing short of that would have much
effect. I think, men, we'll make our stand right here.

"If we put out all lights, we'll have the attackers at a disadvantage.
We can account for fifty or more, before they close in. And--'Captain
Alden,' sir! Where are you going? Back, here!"

The woman gave no heed. She was half-way to the entrance door, round
the edges of which already torch-light had begun to glimmer as the
attackers strained it from its hinges.

Amazed, the Legionaries stared. The Master started after her. Now she
was on her knees beside one of the dead Maghrabis--the one killed
by Janina. She found nothing; turned to the other; uttered a cry of
exultation and held up a clumsy key.

Back over the floor of gold she ran. Her fingers held a crimson cord,
from which the key dangled.

"Those two--they were guardians of this vault, of course!" she cried.
"Here is the key!"

A cheer burst from the Legionaries. The Master clutched the key,
pressed forward to the inner door. A terrible intensity of emotion
seized all the survivors, as he fitted the key to the ponderous lock.

"God!" the Irishman grunted, as the wards slid back. The padlock
clattered to the floor. The hasp fell. In swung the door.

Through it pressed the Legionaries, with lamps swinging, pistols in
hand. As the last of them entered, the outer door collapsed with a
bursting clangor. Lights gleamed; a white-robed tumult of raging men
burst through. Shots crackled; yells echoed; and the sound of many
sandaled feet, furiously running, filled the outer chamber with sounds
of ominous import.

"_Ah, sacres cochons!_" shouted Leclair, emptying his pistol at the
pursuers. The Master thrust him back. The door clanged shut; down
dropped another bar.

Bohannan laughed madly. The fighting-blood was leaping in his veins.

"Oh, the grand fight!" he shouted. "God, the grand old fight!"

Confused voices, crying out in Arabic, wheeled the Master from the
door.

This inner chamber, very much smaller than the outer, was well lighted
by still more lamps, though here all were of chased silver.

At the far end, four dim figures were visible. Black faces peered in
wonder. The Legionaries caught sight of giant simitars, of fluttering
white robes as the figures advanced.

"By Allah!" a hoarse shout echoed. "Look, Mustapha! The Feringi!"

In the shadows at the other end, the amazed Maghrabi swordsmen
hesitated one precious moment. White-rimmed eyes stared, teeth gleamed
through distorted lips.

These gigantic _mudirs_, or Keepers of the Treasure, had expected the
opening of the door to show them the Feringi, indeed, but preceded by
Bara Miyan and surrounded by men of Jannati Shahr.

Now they beheld the dogs of unbelievers all alone, there, with guns in
hands, with every sign of battle. They had heard sounds of war,
from without. Their dull minds, slowly reacting, could not grasp the
significance of all this.

"The Feringi, Yusuf," cried another voice. "And they are alone! What
meaneth this?"

"_M'adri_" (I know not), ejaculated still another. "But _kill--kill_!"

Their attack was hopeless, but its bravery ranked perfect. Their
shouting charge down the chamber, sabers high, ended in grunting
sprawls of white. Not half-naked like the low-caste Maghrabi outside,
but clad in Arab fashion, they lay there, with Legionaries' bullets in
breast and brain.

The Master smiled, grimly, as he walked to one of the bodies and
stirred it with his naked foot. He swung above it a silver lamp he had
pulled down from the wonderfully arabesqued wall.

"Four scimitars added to our equipment will be useful, at close
quarters," he opined very coolly, unmindful of the dull uproar now
battering at the inner door. "Pick up the cutlery, men, and don't
forget the admirable qualities of the _arme blanche_!"