matter about that, though. My proposal has been rejected. Peace having
been declined, we have no alternative but to use other, means.
There is positively no way of coming to an agreement with our Moslem
friends, below."

As if to corroborate his statement, a rifle-bullet whistled through
the open trap and flattened itself against the metal underbody of the
fuselage, over their heads. It fell almost at "Captain Alden's" feet.
She picked it up and pocketed it.

"My first bit of Arabia," said she. "Worth keeping."

The firing, below, had now become more general than ever. Shrill cries
rose to Allah for the destruction of these infidel flying dogs. The
Master paid no more heed to them than to the buzzing of so many bees.

"I think, Major," said he, "we shall have to use one of the two
kappa-ray bombs on these Arabic gentry. It's rather too bad we haven't
more of them, and that the capsules are all gone."

"Pardon me, my Captain," put in Leclair, "but the
paralysis-vibrations, eh? As you did to me, why not to them?"

"Impossible. The way we're crippled, now, I haven't the equipment. But
I shall nevertheless be able to show you something, Lieutenant. Major
will you kindly drop one of the kappa-rays?"

He gestured at two singular-looking objects that stood on the metal
floor of the lower gallery, about six feet from the trap. Cubical
objects they were, some five inches on the edge, each enclosed in what
seemed a tough, black, leather-like substance netted with stout white
cords that were woven together into a handle at the top.

Strong as Bohannan was, his face grew red, with swollen veins in
forehead and neck, as he tried to lift this small object. Nothing in
the way of any known substance could possibly have weighed so much;
not even solid lead or gold.

"Faith!" grunted the major. "What the devil? These two little metal
boxes didn't weigh a pound apiece when--ugh!--when we packed 'em in
our bags. How about it, chief?"

The Master smiled with amusement.

"They weren't magnetized then, Major," he answered. "Shall I have
someone help you?"

"No, by God! I'll either lift this thing or die, right here!" the Celt
panted, redder still. But he did not lift the little cube. The best he
could do was to drag it, against mighty resistance, to the edge of the
trap; and with a last, mighty heave, project it into space.

As it left the trap, _Nissr_ rocked and swayed, showing how great a
weight had been let drop. Down sped the little, netted cube, whirling
in the sunlight. Its speed was almost that of a rifle-ball--so far in
excess of anything that could have been produced by gravitation as to
suggest that some strange, magnetic force was hurling it earthward,
like a metal-filing toward an electro-magnet. It dwindled to nothing,
in a second, and vanished.

All peered over the rail, eager with anticipation. No explosion
followed, but the most astonishing thing happened. All at once,
without any preliminary disturbance, the ground became white. A
perfect silence fell on the Haram and the city for perhaps half a mile
on all sides of the sacred enclosure Haram and streets, roof-tops,
squares all looked as if suddenly covered with deep snow.

This whiteness, however, was not snow, but was produced by the
_ihrams_ of the pilgrims now coming wholly to view.

Instead of gazing down on the heads of the multitude--all bare heads,
as the Prophet commands for pilgrims--the Legionaries now found
themselves looking at their whole bodies. Every pilgrim in sight
had instantaneously fallen to the earth, on the gravel of the Haram,
along the raised walks from the porticoes to the Ka'aba, on the marble
tiling about the Ka'aba itself, even in the farthest visible streets.

The white-clad figures lay piled on each other in grotesque attitudes
and heaps. Even the stone tank at the north-west side of the Ka'aba,
under the famous Myzab, or Golden Waterspout on the Ka'aba roof, was
heaped full of them; and all round the sacred Zem Zem well they lay in
silent windrows, reaped down by some silent, invisible force.

In the remote suburbs and out on the plain, the Legionaries'
binoculars could still see a swarming of white figures; but all the
immediate vicinity was now wholly silent, motionless. To and fro the
Master swept his glasses, and nodded with satisfaction.

"You have now fifteen minutes, men," said he, "before the paralyzing
shock of that silent detonation--that noiseless release of molecular
energies which does not kill nor yet destroy consciousness in the
least--will pass away. So--"

"You mean to tell me, my Captain, _those pilgrims are still
conscious?_" demanded Leclair, amazed.

"Perfectly. They will see, hear, and know all you do. I wish them to.
The effect will be salutary, later. But they cannot move or interfere.
All you have to look out for is the incoming swarm of fanatics already
on the move. So there is no time to be lost. Into the nacelle, and
down with you!"

"But if they try to rush us you can drop the other bomb, can't you?"
demanded the major, as they all clambered into the nacelle.

The Master smiled, as he laid his hands on top of the basket and
cast his eyes over the equipment there, noting that machine-guns,
pick-axes, crowbars, and all were in position.

"The idea does you credit, Major," said he. "The fact that the other
bomb would of course completely paralyze you and your men, here, is
naturally quite immaterial. Let us have no more discussion, please.
Only fourteen minutes, thirty seconds now remain before the _Hujjaj_
will begin to recover their muscular control. You have your work cut
out for you, the next quarter-hour!"

The Master raised his hand in signal to Grison, at the electric winch
A turn of a lever, and the nacelle rose from the metals of the lower
gallery. It swung over the trap and was steadied there, a moment, by
many hands. The raiding-party leaped in.

"Lower away!" commanded the chief

Smoothly the winch released the fine steel cable, with a purring
sound. Down shot the nacelle, steadily, swiftly, with the major,
Leclair, and the others now engaged in the most perilous, dare-devil
undertaking imaginable.

Down, swiftly down, to raid the _Bayt Ullah_, the sacred Ka'aba, holy
of holies to more than two hundred million Moslem fanatics, each of
whom would with joy have died to keep the hand of the unbelieving
dog from so much as touching that hoar structure or the earth of the
inviolate Haram.

Down, swiftly down with picks and crowbars. Down, into the midst of
all that paralyzed but still conscious hate, to the very place of the
supremely sacred Black Stone, itself.




CHAPTER XXXII


THE BATTLE OF THE HARAM

The raiding-party, beside its two leaders, consisted of Lombardo,
Rennes, Emilio, Wallace, and three others, including Lebon. The
lieutenant's orderly, now having recovered strength, had pleaded so
hard for an opportunity to avenge himself on the hated Moslems that
Leclair had taken him.

As for Lombardo, he had downright insisted on going. His life, he
knew, was already forfeited to the expedition--by reason of his having
let the stowaway escape--and, this being so, he had begged and been
granted the favor of risking it in this perilous undertaking.

Such was the party now swiftly dropping toward the Haram where never
yet in the history of the world two English-speaking men had at one
time gathered; where never yet the speech of the heretic had been
heard; where so many intruders had been beheaded or crucified for
having dared profane the ground sacred to Allah and his Prophet.

To the major, peering over the side of the nacelle, it seemed as
if the Haram--central spot of pilgrimage and fanatic devotion for
one-seventh of the human race--were leaping up to meet him. With
dizzying rapidity the broad square, the grim black Ka'aba, the
prostrate white throngs all sprang up at the basket. Fascinated, the
major watched; his eyes, above all, sought the mysterious Ka'aba.
Excitement thrilled his romantic soul at thought that he was one of
the very first white men in the world ever to behold that strange,
ancient building.

Clearly he could see the stone slabs cemented with gypsum, the few
stricken pigeons lying there, the cords holding the huge _kiswah_,
or brocaded cloth, covering "Mecca's bride," (the Ka'aba). The Golden
Waterspout was plainly visible, gleaming in the sun--a massive trough
of pure metal, its value quite incalculable.

Now the Ka'aba was close; now the nacelle slowed, beside it, in the
shadow of its grim blackness. The major got an impression of exceeding
richness from the shrouding veil, which he saw to be a huge silken
fabric, each side like a vast theater curtain of black, with a
two-foot band a little more than half-way up, the whole covered with
verses from the Koran worked in gold.

The nacelle sank gently on to a heap of motionless pilgrims, canted to
the left, and came to rest. Not a groan, curse, or even a sigh escaped
the desecrated Moslems forever defiled by the touch of the infidels'
accursed machine.

The effect was horribly uncanny--of all those brown men, open-eyed and
conscious, but perfectly unable to move so much as an eyebrow. Such as
had fallen with their eyes in the direction of the nacelle, could
see what was going on; the others could only judge of this incredible
desecration by what they could hear. The sound of foreign voices,
speaking an unbelievers' tongue in the very shadow of the Ka'aba, must
have been supremely horrible to every Mohammedan there.

"Out, men, and at it!" the major commanded, as he scrambled from the
nacelle, slid and stumbled over the Moslems, and reached hands for the
tools passed out to him. Leclair followed. Men and tools were swiftly
unloaded, leaving only Wallace and Emilio at their guns, as agreed.

"Faith, but this is some proposition!" grunted the major, as the seven
men trampled over the prostrate bodies, without any delay whatever to
peer at the Haram or the Ka'aba.

"The stone's there, men, at the south-east corner! Get busy!"

No exhortation was necessary. Every man, nerved to the utmost energy
by the extreme urgency of the situation, leaped to work. And a strange
scene began, the strangest in all the history of that unknown city of
mysteries. The little troop of white men in uniform stumbled over the
bodies and faces of their enemies along the Ka'aba, past the little
door about seven feet from the ground, and so, skirting the slanting
white base, two feet high, came to the Hajar el Aswad, or Black Stone,
itself.

Above, in the burning Arabian sky, the air-liner hovered like a
gigantic bird of prey, her gallery-rails lined with motionless
watchers. The Master observed every move through powerful glasses.
Over his ears a telephone headpiece, which he had slipped on, kept him
in close touch with the men in the nacelle, via the steel cable. This
cable formed a strand between East and West; if any evil chance
should break it, life would end there and then for nine members of the
Legion, brave men all.

That their time was short, indeed, was proved by the vague, hollow
roar already drifting in from the outskirts of the city, and from
the plain whence, crowding, struggling into the city's narrow ways, a
raging mass of pilgrims was already on the move. A tidal-wave, a sea
of hate, the hundred thousand or more _Hujjaj_ as yet untouched by the
strong magic of the Feringi, were fighting their way toward the Haram.

The time of respite was measured but by minutes. Each minute, every
second, bore supreme value.

"There she is, men!" the major shouted, pointing. And on the instant,
driving furiously with pick-axe, he struck the first blow.

Plainly, about three feet below the bottom of the silken veil and four
feet above the pavement, there indeed they saw the inestimably sacred
stone, which every Moslem believes once formed a part of Paradise and
was given by Allah to the first man. To the Legionaries' excited eyes
it seemed to be an irregular oval, perhaps seven inches in diameter,
with an undulating surface composed of about a dozen smaller stones
joined by cement and worn blackly smooth by millions of touches and
kisses.

It was surrounded by a border of cement that looked like pitch and
gravel; and the major noted, even as he drove his pick into this
cement, that both the stone and the border were enclosed by a massive
circle of gold with the lower part studded full of silver nails.

Only these hasty observations, and no more, the Legionaries made as
they fell with furious energy to the task of dislodging the venerable
relic. To all but this labor they were oblivious--to the heat and
stifle of that sun-baked square, the mute staring of the paralyzed
_Hujjaj_, the wafting languor of incenses from the colonnades, the
quiet murmur of waters from the holy well, Zem Zem.

The scene, which ordinarily would have entranced them and filled them
with awe, now had become as nothing. Every energy, every sense had
centered itself only on this one vital work of extracting the Black
Stone from the Ka'aba wall and of making a swift getaway with it
before the rising murmur of rage, from without the area of paralysis,
should sweep in on them with annihilating passion.

"Here, Emilio--drive your pick here!" commanded the major, his red
face now dark crimson with heat and excitement as well as with the
intense force wherewith he was wielding his implement. Cement flew
in showers at every stroke, out over the sweating Legionaries and the
prostrate Moslems near the stone. The white men slid and stumbled
on limp bodies, trampled them unheedingly, and of the outstretched
pilgrims made as it were a kind of vantage-post for the attack on the
inmost citadel of Islam.

"Work quick, Major!" came the Master's voice, seemingly at Bohannan's
elbow. "There's a fearful drove of the rascals coming. You'd better
get that stone out and away in double-quick time!"

The major replied nothing, but his pick-axe flailed into the cement
with desperate energy. Emilio and others seconded him, while Rennes
and Wallace dug, kneeling, with their crowbars. The blows echoed with
staccato rapidity through the sacred Haram, which now had begun to
fill with the confused roar of the on-coming mobs from the Ma'abidah
suburb and the Plain of Mina, from Jebel Hindi and the Sulaymainyah
quarter.

"You have about five minutes more," the Master spoke again. "If
necessary, we will open on them with machine-guns, from the ship, but
I'd like to avoid bloodshed if possible. Do the best you can!"

Bohannan had no breath for answering. Every ounce of energy of all
seven men was being flung into that mad labor. Sweat streamed into
their eyes, half blinding them; they dashed it off, and struck again
and again. The cement crumbled and gave; the heavy gold band commenced
to bend; Rennes got his crowbar into an advantageous leverage and gave
a mighty heave.

The stone seemed to cry aloud, with a dry, harsh screaming sound
of outraged agony, as it yielded. It was only the sundering of
the mortar, of course; but a chill ran up the major's spine, and
goose-flesh prickled all over him. Furiously the Legionaries worked
the stone back and forth; a shower of mortar fell on the workers' feet
and on the upturned, staring faces of the paralyzed Moslems trampled
by the horrible contamination of heretical boots--perhaps even pigskin
boots!--and then, all at once, the Hajar el Aswad slid from the place
where it had lain uncounted centuries.

Cursing with frantic excitement, the Legionaries tugged it from the
wall, together with its golden band. Above them the _kiswah_ bellied
outward, swaying in the breeze. No Moslem has ever admitted that the
Ka'aba veil is ever moved by any other thing than the wings of angels.
Those of the Faithful who now beheld that movement, felt the avenging
messengers of Allah were near, indeed; and a thousand unspoken prayers
flamed aloft:

"Angels of death, Azraël and his host, smite these outcasts of
Feringistan!"

The prayers seemed more likely of fulfilment from the hands of the
oncoming hordes already streaming into the converging streets to the
Haram. As the stone came clear, into the hands of the invaders, a
dank, chill blast of air blew from the aperture against the white
men's faces. It seemed to issue as from a cavern; and with it came a
low, groaning sound, as of a soul in torment.

A shadow fell across the Haram; the light of the sun was dulled. The
sudden crack of a rifle-shot snapped from the arcade, and a puff of
rock-dust flew from the corner of the Ka'aba, not two feet from the
major's head.

"Come on, men!" cried the major. "Away!"

Some latent mysticism had been stirred in him; some vague, half-sensed
superstition. Nothing more natural than that a cold draught should
have soughed from the pent interior of the temple, or that the
air-liner, slowly turning as she hung above the Haram, should with her
vast planes have for a moment thrown her shadow over the square. But
the Celt's imaginative nature quivered as he gripped the stone.

"You, quick, on the other end!" he cried to Emilio. "You, Lombardo,
steady her! So! Now--to the nacelle!"

The rifles were opening a lively fire, already, as the men staggered
over the prostrate Moslems, reached the nacelle and with a grunt and
a heave tumbled the Hajar el Aswad into it. They scrambled after,
falling into the shelter of the basket.

Into the arcade, at the north-east corner and half-way along the
western side, two furious swarms of white-robed _Hujjaj_ were already
debouching, yelling like fiends, firing as they came. The uproar
swelled rapidly, in a swift-rising tide. The Haram grew all a
confusion of wild-waving arms, streaming robes, running men who
stumbled over the paralyzed forms of their coreligionists. Knives,
spears, scimitars, rifles glinted in the sun.

The whine and patter of bullets filled the air, punctured the
_kiswah_, slogged against the Ka'aba. Lebon and Rennes, turning loose
the machine-guns, mowed into the white of the pack; but still they
came crowding on and on, frenzied, impervious to fear.

Up rose the nacelle, as the major wildly shouted into the phone. It
soared some forty feet in air, up past the black silken curtain, then
unaccountably stopped, level with the Ka'aba roof.

"Up! Up!" yelled Bohannan, frantically. The spud of bullets against
the steel basket tingled the bodies of the men crouching against the
metal-work.

All at once Dr. Lombardo stood up, pick-axe in hand, fully exposed to
rifle-fire.

"Down, you blazing idiot!" commanded the major, dragging at him with
hands that shook. The doctor thrust him away, and turned toward the
Ka'aba, the roof of which was not three feet distant.

"The golden spout--see?" he cried, pointing. "_Dio mio_, what a
treasure!" On to the edge of the nacelle he clambered.

"Don't be a damn fool, Doctor!" the major shouted; but already
Lombardo had leaped. Pick in hand, he jumped, landing on the flat roof
of the temple.

Ferocious howls and execrations swelled into a screaming chorus
of hate, of rage. Unmindful, the Italian was already frantically
attacking the Myzab. Blow after blow he rained upon it with the sharp,
cutting edge of the pick, that at every stroke sank deep into the
massive gold, shearing it in deep gashes.

A perfect hail of rifle-fire riddled the air all about him, but still
he labored with sweat streaming down his face all blackened with dirt
and cement. From _Nissr_, far above, cries and shouts rang down at
him, mingled with the sharp spitting of the machine-guns from the
lower gallery. The guns in the nacelle, too, were chattering; the
Haram filled itself with a wild turmoil; the scene beggared any
attempt at description, there under the blistering ardor of the
Arabian sun.

All at once Dr. Lombardo inserted the blade of the pick under the
golden spout, pried hard, bent it upward. He stamped it down again
with his boot-heel, dropped the pick and grappled it with both
straining hands. By main force he wrenched it up almost at right
angles. He gave another pull, snapped it short off, dragged it to the
parapet of the Ka'aba, and with a frantic effort swung it, hurled it
into the nacelle.

Down sank the basket, a little, under this new weight.

The doctor leaped, jumped short, caught the edge of the basket and
was just pulling himself up when a slug caught him at the base of the
brain.

His hold relaxed; but the major had him by the wrists. Into the
nacelle he dragged the dying man.

"For the love o' God, _haul up!_" he shouted.

The basket leaped aloft, as the winch--that had been jammed by a
trivial accident to the control--took hold of the steel cable. Up
it soared, still pursued by dwindling screams of rage, by now futile
rifle-fire. Before it had reached the trap in the lower gallery,
the main propellers had begun to whicker into swift revolution, all
gleaming in the afternoon sun. The gigantic shadow of the Eagle of the
Sky began to slide athwart the hill-side streets to south-eastward of
the Haram; and so, away.

Up came the nacelle through the trap. The davit swung it to one side;
the trap was slammed down and bolted. Out of the nacelle tumbled the
major, pale as he had formerly been red, his face all drawn with grief
and pain.

"The damned Moslem swine!" he panted. "Faith, but they--they've killed
him!" He flung a passionate hand at the basket, in which, prone across
the golden spout, the still body of Lombardo was lying. "They've
killed as brave a man--"

"We all saw what he did, Major," the chief said quietly. "Dr. Lombardo
owed us all a debt, and he has paid it. This is Kismet! Control
yourself, Major. The price of such brave adventure--is often death."

They lifted out the limp form, and carried it away to the cabin Dr.
Lombardo had occupied, there to wait some opportune time for burial
in the desert. Mecca, in the meanwhile, was already fading away to
north-westward. The heat-shimmer of that baked land of bare-ribbed
rock and naked, igneous hills had already begun to blur its outlines.
The white minarets round the Haram still with delicate tracery as of
carved ivory stood up against the sky; but of the out-raged people,
the colonnades, the despoiled and violated Ka'aba, nothing could any
more be seen.

Southward by eastward sped _Nissr_; and with her now was departing the
soul of Islam. In her keeping lay three things more sacred than all
else to Mohammedan hearts--Kaukab el Durri, the Great Pearl Star; Ha
jar el As wad, the Black Stone; and Myzab, the Golden Waterspout.

Awed, silenced, the Legionaries stood there in the lower gallery,
peering into the blood-stained nacelle. Hard-bitten men, all, and used
to the ways and usages of war; yet factors were present in this latest
exploit that sobered and steadied them as never before.

The Master, still unmoved, merely smiled a peculiar smile as he
commanded:

"Major, have the stone and the golden spout carried to my cabin. And,
if you please, no remarks!"

Bohannan picked a few men to fulfil the order. Then he asked and
received permission to retire to the smoke-room, for a pipe and a
quiet half-hour, after having washed the dust and grime of battle
from his hands and face. The major's Celtic nerves needed tobacco and
reflection as they had rarely needed them.

The Master, climbing up the ladder to the main gallery, left Leclair
and a few off-duty men in the lower one. Two or three approached the
French ace, to hold speech with him about the exploit at the Ka'aba,
but he withdrew from them to the extreme rear end of the gallery and
remained for a long time in silent contemplation of the fading city,
the Plain of Mina, and Mount Arafat, beyond.

As the vague purple haze of late afternoon deepened to veils that
began to hide even the outlines of the mountain, he leaned both elbows
on the rail and in his own language whispered:

"_Nom de Dieu!_ The Pearl Star--the Golden Waterspout--the sacred
Black Stone!" His face was white with pride and a fire of eagerness
that burned within. "Why, now we're masters of all Islam--masters of
the treasure-houses of the Orient!

"_Mais--nom de Dieu!_"




CHAPTER XXXIII


THE ORDEAL OF RRISA

Alone in his cabin with the waterspout of massive gold and with the
sacred Black Stone, the Master sat down in front of the table where
they had been laid, took a few leaves of khat, and with profound
attention began to study the treasures his _bold coup_ had so
successfully delivered into his hands.

The waterspout, he saw at once, would as a mere object of precious
metal be worth a tremendous sum. It was of raw gold, apparently
unalloyed--as befitted its office of carrying the water from the roof
of the Ka'aba and throwing it upon Ishmael's grave, where pilgrims
have for centuries stood fighting to catch it. Its color verged
on reddish; all its lateral surfaces were carved with elaborate
arabesques and texts from the Koran. The bottom bore an inscription in
Tumar characters, easily decipherable by the Master, stating that it
had been sent from Constantinople in the year of the Hegira 981, by
Shâfey Hanbaly, the Magnificent.

"A great treasure," pondered the Master. "An almost incalculable
treasure, in itself; but less so, intrinsically, than as an object of
Moslem veneration. In either case, however, enormously valuable."

He examined it a moment or two longer, noting with care the gashes and
deep cuts made by the frantic strokes of Dr. Lombardo's pick-axe. What
his thoughts might have been regarding the doctor's tragic death, none
could have told. For with a face quite unmoved, he turned now to the
examination of the world-famous Black Stone.

This object, he saw, possessed no value whatever, _per se_. Aside from
its golden encircling band studded with silver nails, its worth seemed
practically nothing. As it lay on the table before him, he realized
that it was nothing but a common aerolite, with the appearance of
black slag. 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. No doubt one man could have carried it from its place in the
Ka'aba to the nacelle; but in the excitement of battle, and impeded by
having to stumble over prostrate Moslems, the major had considered it
advisable to ask for help.

"Mineralogically speaking, this is a meteor or a block of volcanic
basalt," judged the Master. "It seems sprinkled with small crystals,
with rhombs of tile-red feldspath on a dark background like velvet or
charcoal, except for one reddish protuberance of an unknown substance.
A good blow with a hammer would surely break it along the original
lines of fracture--and this is well worth knowing and remembering".

"Well, so far so good," he concluded. "The Air Control Board hasn't
got us, yet. Neither have the Mohammedans. True, we've lost a number
of men, but that was to have been expected. That's inevitable, and we
still have enough. I hardly see that we have so very much to complain
of, so far."

He turned, pulled a blanket from his berth and carefully spread it
over the loot on the table. Then he pushed the button communicating
with the cabin wherein Rrisa was still quivering as a result of having
heard the fusillades and the terrific tumult--unseen though they had
been to him--at Mecca.

In a couple of minutes the faithful orderly appeared, salaamed, and
stood waiting with a drawn, troubled face.

"_Allah m'a!_" the Master greeted him, in Allah's name inquiring for
his good health. "I have something important to ask thee. Come in.
Come in, and close the door."

He spoke in Arabic. The orderly, in the same tongue, made answer as he
obeyed:

"The Master hath but to talk, and it is answered, if my knowledge can
suffice." His words were submissive; but the expression was strange
in his eyes, at sight of the blanket on the table. That blanket might
hide--what might it not hide? The light in his gaze became one the
Master had never yet seen there, not even in the sternest fighting at
Gallipoli.

"Mecca lieth behind us, Rrisa," the Master began. "Thou hast seen
nothing of it, or of what happened there?"

"Nothing, _M'almé._ I was bidden remain in my cabin, and the Master's
word is always my law. It is true that I heard sounds of a great
fighting, but I obeyed the Master. I saw nothing. The Sheik Abd el
Hareth, did you deliver him into the hands of the Faithful?"

"No, Rrisa. They refused to accept him. And now I have other plans
for him. It is well that thou didst see nothing, for it was a mighty
fighting and there was death both to them and to us. Now, my questions
to thee."

"Yea, Master?"

"Tell me this thing, first. Is it indeed true speaking, as I have
heard, that the Caliph el Walid the First, in Hegira 88, sent to Mecca
an immense present of gold and silver, forty camel-loads of small cut
gems and a hundred thousand _miskals_ in gold coin?"

"It is true, Master. Save that he sent more; nearly two hundred
thousand _miskals_. He also sent eighty Coptic and Greek artists to
carve and gild the mosques.

"One Greek sculptured a hog on the Mosque of Omar, trying to make it
into a _kanisah_ (unclean idol-house). My people discovered the sacrilege,
and"--he added with intent--"gave that Greek the bowstring, then quartered
the body and threw it to the vultures."

"That is of no importance whatever, Rrisa," answered the Master with
an odd smile. "What thy people do to the unbeliever, if they capture
him, is nothing to me. For--dost thou see?--they must first make the
capture. What I would most like to know is this: where is all that
treasure, now?"

"I cannot tell you, Master."

"At Mecca?"

"No, Master, not at Mecca."

"Then where?"

"_M'almé!_ My lips are sealed as the Forbidden Books!"

"Not against the commands of thy sheik--and I am thy sheik!"

Rrisa's lips twitched. The inner struggle of his soul reflected itself
in his lean, brown face. At last he aroused himself to make answer:

"The treasure, Master, is far to the south-east--in another city."

"Ah! So there _is_ another city far out in Ruba el Khali, the Empty
Abodes!"

"Yea, _M'almé_, that is so."

"Then the ancient rumor is true? And it is from near that city that
thou didst come, eh? By Allah's power, I command thee to tell me of
this hidden city of the central deserts!"

"This thing I cannot do, my sheik."

"This thing thou must do!"

"O Master! It is the secret of all secrets! Spare me this!"

"No Rrisa, thou must obey. Far inside El Hejaz (the barrier), that
city is lying for my eyes to behold. I must know of it. Thy oath to me
cannot be broken. Speak, thou!"