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The aureate shimmer on the sky kept steadily increasing, from a point
somewhat to the left of _Nissr's_ line of flight. What this might be,
none could guess. None save the Master. More agitated than any had
ever seen him, he stood there at the rail, lips tight, hands clutching
the binoculars at his eyes.
"By Allah!" the major heard him mutter. "It can't be true--the thing
I've heard. Only a fable, surely! And yet--"
Now the vast plain was coming clearly to view. It appeared fully
under cultivation with patches of greenery that denoted gardens,
palm-groves, fruit-orchards; all signs of a well-watered region here
at the center of the world's most appalling desert.
This in itself was a thing of astonishment. But it faded to
insignificance as all at once a far, dazzling sheen burst on the
watchers. Up against the sky a wondrous, yellow blaze seemed to be
burning. Enormously far away as it still was, it filled the heart
of every observer with a strange, quick thrill of wonder, of hope.
Something of wild exultation seemed to leap through the Legionaries'
veins, at sight of that strange fire.
Leclair glanced at the Master. The dark, taciturn man, for all his
self-control, had set teeth into his lip till the blood was all but
starting.
On, on swooped _Nissr._ Now the plain was widening. Now, off at the
left, behind the shimmer of the wondrous sight that seemed a fantastic
city of dreams, long black cliffs had become visible--surely some spur
of the Iron Mountains, making to southward at the eastern edge of the
plain. This line of crags faded, in remote distance, into the brown
vapors that ringed the mystic horizon.
"The city?" asked Bohannan. "That--can't be the city, can it, now?
Faith, if it _is_, we're too late. Damn me, sir, but the whole
infernal place is on fire! Just our rotten luck, eh?"
The Master made no reply. As if he would devour the place with his
eyes, he was leaning over the rail, boring through those powerful
glasses at the dazzle and bright sheen of the wonder-city now every
moment becoming more clearly visible.
That it was in truth a city could no longer be doubted. Long walls
came to view, pierced by gates with fantastic arches. Domes rose to
heaven. Delicate minarets, carved into a fretwork of amazing fineness,
pointed their fingers at the yellow shimmering sky. The contrast of
that brilliance, with the soft green gardens and feathery palm-groves
before, the grim black cliffs behind, filled the Legionaries with a
kind of silent awe.
But most wonderful of all was the metallic shimmer of those walls,
domes, minarets, under the high sun of this lost Arabian paradise. So
amazing was the prospect that, as _Nissr_ hurled herself in over
the last ranges of the mountains and shot out across the open plain
itself, only one man found words.
This man was Leclair. Close beside the Master, he said in Arabic:
"I too have heard, my Captain. I too know the story of the Bara
Jannati Shahr--but I have always thought it fable. Now, now--."
"Faith!" interrupted the major, with sudden excitement. He smote the
rail a blow with an agitated fist. "If that doesn't look like gold,
I'm a--."
"Gold?" burst out the Master, unable longer to control himself. "Of
course it's gold! And we--are the first white men in all the world to
look on it--the Golden City of Jannati Shahr!"
Stupefaction overcame the Flying Legion. The sight of this perfectly
incredible city, which even yet--despite its obvious character--they
could not believe as reality, for a little while deprived all the
observers of coherent thought.
Like men in a daze, they stood watching the far-distant mass of walls,
buildings, towers, battlements all agleam with the unmistakable sheen
of pure metal. The human mind, confronted by such a phenomenon, fails
to react, and for a while lies inert, stunned, prostrate.
"Gold?" stammered the major, and fell to gnawing his mustache, as
he stared at the incredible sight. "By God--gold? Sure, it can't be
_that_!"
"It not only can be, but is!" the Master answered. "The old legend is
coming true, that's all. Have you no eyes in your head, Major? If that
shine isn't the shine of gold, what is it?"
"Yes, but the thing's impossible, sir!" cried Bohannan. "Why, man
alive! If that's gold, the whole of Arabia would be here after it!
There'd be caravans, miners, swarms of--"
"It's obvious you know nothing of Moslem severity or superstition,"
the Master interrupted. "There is no Mohammedan beggar, even starving,
who would touch a grain of that metal. Not even if it were given him.
There's not one would carry an ounce away from the Iron Mountains.
This whole region is under the ban of a most terrific _tabu_, that
loads unthinkable curses on any human being who removes a single atom
of any metal from it!"
"Ah, that's it, eh?"
"Yes, that's very much it! And what is more, Major, no word of this
ever gets out to the white races--or hardly any. Nothing more than
vague rumors that barely amount to fairy stories. Even though I forced
Rrisa to tell me the location of this city, he wouldn't mention its
being gold, and I knew too much to ask him or try to make him. Why,
he'd have been torn to bits before he'd have betrayed _that_ Inner
Secret. So now you understand!"
"I see, I see," the major answered, mechanically. It was plain,
however, that his mind had received a shock from which it had not yet
fully recovered. He remained staring and blinking, first chewing at
his mustache and then tugging it with blunt, trembling fingers. Now
and then he shook his head, like a man just waking from a dream and
trying to make himself realize that he is indeed awake.
The others, some to a greater degree, some to a less, shared the
major's perturbation. A daze, a numb stupefaction had fallen on them.
The Master, however, soon recalled them to activity. Not much time now
remained before _Nissr_ must make her landing on the plain near the
Golden City. None was to be wasted.
Vigorous orders set the Legionaries to work. The machine-guns were
loaded and fully manned; several pieces of apparatus that the Master
had been perfecting in his cabin were brought into the lower gallery;
everyone was commanded to smarten his personal appearance. The
psychology of the Oriental was such, well the Master knew, that the
impression the Legion should make upon the people of this wonder-city
could not fail to be of the very highest importance.
The plain over which _Nissr_ was now sweeping, with the black
mountains left far behind, seemed a fairyland of beauty compared with
the desolation of the Central Arabian Desert.
"This is surely a fitting spot for the exact geometrical center of
Islam," the Master said to Leclair, as they stood looking down. "My
measurements show this secret valley to be that center. Mecca, of
course, has only been a blind, to keep the world from knowing anything
about this, the true heart of the Faith. The Meccans have been
usurping the Black Stone, all these centuries, and these Jannati Shahr
people have submitted because any conflict would have betrayed their
existence to the world. That is my theory. Good, eh?"
"Excellent!" the lieutenant replied. "There must be millions of
Mohammedans, themselves, who have hardly learned of this valley.
Certainly, very few from the outside world ever have been able to
cross the Empty Abodes, and reach it.
"These people here evidently represent a far higher culture than
any other Moslems ever known. Who ever saw a finer city--even not
considering its material--or more wonderful cultivation of land?"
His eyes wandered out over the plain, which lost itself to sight in
the remote south. Roads in various directions, with here and there
a few white dromedaries bearing bright-colored _shugdufs_ (litters),
showed there was travel to some other inhabited spots inside the
forbidding mountain girdle.
Here, there, herds of antelope and flocks of sheep were grazing on
broad meadows, through which trickled sparkling threads of water,
half glimpsed among feathery-tufted date-palms. Plantations of fig and
pomegranate, lime, apricot, and orange trees, with other fruits not
recognized, slid beneath the giant liner as she slowed her pace. And
broad fields of wheat, barley, tobacco, and sugar-cane showed that the
people of the city had no fear of any lack.
Birds were here--pelicans, cranes, and water-fowl along the brooks
and gleaming pools; swift little yellow birds with crownlike crests;
doves, falcons, and hawks of unknown species. Here was life abundant,
after the death of the Empty Abodes. Here was rich color; here arose
a softly perfumed air, balmy, incensed as with strange aromatics. Here
was peace--eternal _kayf_--blessed rest--here indeed lay a scene that
gave full explanation of the ancient name "Arabia Felix."
And at the left, dominating all this beauty, shone and glimmered in
the ardent sun the wondrous Golden City of Jannati Shahr.
_Nissr_ had already begun to slant to lower levels. Now at no more
than twenty-five hundred feet, with greatly reduced speed, she was
drifting down the valley toward the city, the details of which
were every moment becoming more apparent. Its size, the wondering
Legionaries saw, must be very considerable; it might have contained
three or four hundred thousand inhabitants. Its frontage along the
black mountains could not have been less than two and a half miles;
and, as it seemed to lose itself up a defile in those crags, no way at
present existed of judging its depth.
The general appearance was that of stern simplicity. A long wall
of gleaming yellow bounded it, from north to south; this wall being
pierced by seven gates, each flanked by minarets. Behind the wall,
terraces arose, with _mesjid_ (temple) domes, innumerable houses, and
some larger buildings of unknown purpose.
The powerful glasses on _Nissr_ showed fretwork carving everywhere;
but the main outlines of the city, none the less, gave an impression
of almost primitive severity. No touch of modernity affected it.
Everything appeared immensely archaic.
"The Jerusalem of Solomon's day," thought the Master, "must have
looked like that--barring only that this is solid gold."
Out from the city, a little less than two-thirds of the way down,
issued a rather considerable stream. It seemed to come from under the
wall fronting the plain. Its course, straight rather than sinuous,
lay toward the south-west, and was marked by long lines of giant
date-palms and pale-stemmed eucalyptus trees, till it lost itself in
brown distances.
"Faith, but that looks like lotus-eating, all right," said the major,
notching up his cartridge-belt another hole. "That looks like 'A book
of verses underneath the bough,' with Fatima or Lalla Rookh, or the
like, eh?" He drew at a cigarette, and smiled with sweet visionings of
Celtic exuberance. "A golden city! Lord!"
"You'll do no dallying 'with Amaryllis in the shade,' in _this_
valley!" the Master flung at him. "Nor any lotus-eating, either. To
your stations, men! Wake up! Forget all about this gold, now--remember
my orders! That's all you've got to do. The gold will take care of
itself, later. For now, there's stern work ahead!"
The Legionaries assumed their posts, ready for whatever attack might
come. They still moved like men in a trance. Whether they could quite
even realize the true character of Jannati Shahr seemed doubtful. The
Inca's room of gold stunned Pizarro and his men. How much more, then,
must a whole city of gold numb any concrete thought?
Down, still down sank _Nissr_, now beginning to circle in broad,
descending spirals, seeking where she might land. The roar of the
propellers lessened; and at the same time, the increasing hum of the
helicopters made itself heard, counterbalancing the loss of lifting
power of the planes, yet gradually letting the air-liner sink. Came,
too, a sighing hiss of the air-intakes as the vacuum-floats filled.
High noon was now at hand. The sun burned, a copper ball, in the very
forehead of a turquoise sky. A light breeze, lazying over the plain,
stirred the fronded tufts of the date-palms' thick plantations.
Beyond a massy grove, stretching for nearly two miles out from
the northernmost gate of the city, a grassy level quite like a
parade-ground invited the liner to rest.
As she sank still lower, the Master's glass again picked up the city
wall and ran along it. Here, there, white dots were visible; human
figures, surely--the figures of men in snowy burnouses, on the
ramparts of heavy metal.
The Master smiled, and nodded.
"My men think they are surprised," he mused. "What will these Jannati
Shahr men think, when I have opened my little box of tricks and shown
them what's inside?"
He pressed a button on the rail. A bell trilled in the pilot-house;
another in the engine-room. The Norcross-Brails died to inactivity.
With a last long swoop, an abandonment of all the furious energies
that for so long had been hurling her over burning sand and black
crag, _Nissr_ slanted to the grassy sward. A sudden, furious hissing
burst out beneath her, as the compressed-air valves were thrown and
the air-cushions formed beneath her thousands of spiracles. Then, with
hardly a shudder, easily as a tired gull slips down into the quiet of
a still lagoon, the vast air-liner took earth.
She slid two hundred yards on her air-cushions, over the close-cropped
turf, slowed, came to rest there fronting the northern gate of Bara
Jannati Shahr. And the shimmer of those golden walls, one mile to east
of her, painted her all a strangely luminous yellow.
Journey's end, at last!
CHAPTER XXXVII
THE GREETING OF WARRIORS
Without delay, everything was put in complete readiness for whatever
eventualities might develop. If these strange people meant peace and
wanted it, the Legion would give them peace. If war, then by no means
was the Legion to be unprepared.
The gangplank was put down from the starboard port in the lower
gallery. The helicopters were cut off. Nothing was left running but
one engine, at half-speed, to furnish current for the apparatus the
Master had decided to use in dealing with the Jannati Shahr folk in
case of need--some of this having been evolved on the run from Mecca.
Four hampers were carried down the gangplank and set on the grass,
about fifty feet ahead of _Nissr's_ huge beak, that towered in air
over the men like an eagle over sparrows. These hampers contained the
chosen apparatus. Wires were attached, and run back to the ship, and
proper connections made at once by Leclair and Menendez, under the
Master's instructions.
The machine-guns were dismounted and taken "ashore," to borrow a
nautical phrase. These were set up in strategic positions before the
liner, and full supplies of ammunition both blank and ball were served
to them.
About a quarter of a mile to north of _Nissr's_ position, one of the
small watercourses or irrigating ditches that cut the plain glimmered
through a grove of Sayhani dates.[1] To this ditch the Master sent two
men in search of the largest stone they could find there. When they
returned with a rock some foot in diameter, he ordered it placed
half-way between _Nissr_ and the palm-grove.
[Footnote 1: Sayhani (the Crier), so called because one of these palms
is fabled to have cried aloud in salutation to Mohammed, when the
Prophet happened to walk beneath it.]
These preparations made, the Master lined up his Legionaries for
inspection and final instructions. Standing there in military array,
fully armed, they made rather a formidable body of fighters despite
their paucity of numbers. Courage, eagerness, and joy--still
unalloyed by all the fatigues and perils of the long trek after
adventure--showed on every face. Even through the eyeholes of "Captain
Alden's" mask, daring exultation glimmered.
The dead, left behind, could not now depress the Legionaries' spirits.
To be on solid earth again, in this wonderland with the Golden City
fronting them, quickened every man's pulse.
What though they were but a handful, ringed round by grim, jagged
mountains, beyond which lay hundreds of leagues of burning sand? What
though an unknown people of great numbers already had begun to stir
in that vast hive of gold? What though all of Islam, which had already
learned of the sacrilege the accursed Feringí had wrought, was
lusting their blood? Nothing of this mattered. It was enough for the
Legionaries that adventure still beckoned onward, ever on!
The Master, standing there before them, called the roll. We should
listen, by way of knowing just how the Legion was now composed. It
consisted of the following: Adams, "Captain Alden," Bohannan, Bristol,
Brodeur, Cracowicz, Emilio, Enemark, Frazíer, Grison, Janina, Lebon,
Leclair, L'Heureux, Manderson, Menendez, Prisrend, Rennes, Seres,
Simonds, Wallace. All the wounded had recovered sufficiently to be of
some service. The dead were: Travers, who had died on the passage
of the Atlantic; Auchincloss and Gorlitz, burned to death; Kloof,
Daimamoto, Beziers and Sheffield, killed by the Beni Harb; Lombardo,
killed by the Meccans; Rrisa, suicide.
In addition to these, we must not forget the Sheik Abd el Rahman,
still locked a prisoner in the cabin that for some days had been his
swift-flying prison-cell of torment.
The Master had just finished checking his roster, when quite without
any preliminary disturbance a crackle of rifle-fire began spattering
from the city. And all at once, out of the gate opposite _Nissr_,
appeared a white-whirling swarm of figures, at the same time that a
green banner, bearing a star and crescent, broke out from the highest
minaret.
The figures issuing in a dense mass from the gate were horsemen, all;
and they were riding full drive, _ventre ŕ terre_. Out into the
plain they debouched, with robes flying, with a green banner, steel
flashing, and over all, a great and continual volleying of rifle-fire.
This horde of rushing cavaliers must have numbered between five
and six hundred; and a fine sight they made as the Master got his
binoculars on them. Here, there, a bit of lively color stood out
vividly against the prevailing snowy white of the mass; but for the
most part, horses and men alike came rushing down like a drive of
furious snow across that wondrous green slope between the palm-groves
and the city wall.
As they drew near, the snapping of burnouses and cherchias in the
wind, the puffs of powder-smoke, the glint of brandished arms grew
clearer; and now, too, the muffled sound of kettle-drums rolled
down-breeze, in booming counterpoint to the sharp staccato of the
rifles.
Furious as an army of _jinnee_ with wild cries, screams, howls, as
they stood in their stirrups and discharged their weapons toward the
sky, the horsemen of Jannati Shahr drove down upon the little group of
Legionaries.
The major loosened his revolver in its holster. Others did the same.
At the machine-guns, the gunners settled themselves, waiting the
Master's word of command to mow into the white foam of that insurging
wave--a wave of frantic riders and of lathering Nedj horses,
the thunder of whose hoofs moment by moment welled up into a
heart-breaking chorus of power.
"Damn it all, sir!" the major exclaimed. "When are you going to rip
into them? They'll be on us, in three minutes--in two! Give 'em Hell,
before it's too late! Stop 'em!"
Leclair smiled dryly behind his lean hand, as the Master emphatically
shook a head in negation.
"No, Major," he said. "No machine-guns yet. You and your eternal
machine-guns are sometimes a weariness to the flesh." He raised his
voice, above the tumult of the approaching storm of men and horses.
"I suppose you've never even heard of the _La'ab el Barut_, the
powder-play of the Arabs? They are greeting us with their greatest
display of ceremony--and you talk about machine-guns!"
He turned, lifted his hand and called to the gunners:
"No mistakes now, men! No accidents! The first man that pulls a
trigger at these people, I'll shoot down with my own hand!"
The lieutenant touched the Master's arm.
"We must give them a return salute, my Captain," he said in Arabic.
"To omit that would be a grave breach of the laws of host and
guest--almost as bad as violating the salt!"
The Master nodded.
"That is quite true, Lieutenant," he answered. "Thank you for
reminding me!"
Once more he turned to the gunners.
"Load with blanks," he commanded, "and aim at an elevation of
forty-five degrees. Hold your fire till I give the word!"
"It is well, _Effendi_!" approved the lieutenant, his eyes gleaming
with Gallic enthusiasm. "These are no People of the Black Tents, no
Beni Harb, nor thieving Meccans. These are men of the very ancient,
true Arabic blood--and we must honor them!"
Already the rushing powder-play was within a few hundred yards.
The roar of hoofs, the smashing volleys of fire, raging of the
kettle-drums, wild-echoing yells of the white company deafened the
Legionaries' ears.
What a sight that was--archaic chivalry in all the loose-robed flight
and flashing magnificence of rushing pride! Not one, not even the
least imaginative of the Legion, but felt his skin crawl, felt his
blood thrill, with stirrings of old romance at sight of this strange,
exalting spectacle!
In the van, an ancient horseman with bright colors in his robe was
riding hardest of all, erect in his high-horned saddle, reins held
loose in a master-hand, gold-mounted rifle with enormously long barrel
flourished on high.
Tall old chief and slim white horse of purest barb breed seemed almost
one creature. Instinctively the Master's service-cap came off, at
sight of him. The lieutenant's did the same. Both men stepped forward,
cap over heart. These two, if no others, understood the soul of
Arabia.
Suddenly the old Sheik uttered a cry. An instant change came over the
rushing horde. With one final volley, silence fell. The kettle-drums
ceased their booming. Every rider leaned far back in his pearl-inlaid,
jewel-crusted saddle, reining in his horse.
And in a moment, as innumerable unshod hoofs dug the heavy turf, all
that thundering host--which but a second before had seemed inevitably
bound to trample down the Legion under a hurricane of white-lathered
horses and frenzied, long-robed men--came to a dead halt of silence
and immobility.
It was as if some magician's wand, touching the crest of an inbreaking
storm-wave, had instantaneously frozen it, white-slavering foam and
all, to motionless rigidity.
Ahead of all, standing erect and proud in his arabesque stirrups, with
the green banner floating overhead, the chief of this whole marvelous
band was stretching out the hand of salaam.
"_Fire_!" cried the Master.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
BARA MIYAN, HIGH PRIEST
The crash of six machine-guns clattered into a chattering tumult,
muzzles pointed high over the heads of the Jannati Shahr men. Up into
the still, hot air jetted vicious spurts of flame.
The Legion's answer lasted but a minute. As the trays of blanks became
empty, the tumult ceased.
Silence fell, strangely heavy after all that uproar. This silence
lengthened impressively, with the massed horsemen on one side, the
Legionaries on the other. Between them stretched a clear green space
of turf. Behind loomed the vast bulk of _Nissr_, scarred, battle-worn,
but powerful. Away in the distance, the glinting golden walls
shimmered across the plain; and over all the Arabian sun glowed down
as if a-wonder at this scene surpassing strange.
Forward stepped the Master, with a word to Leclair to follow him but
to stand a little in the rear. The old Sheik dismounted; and followed
by another graybeard, likewise advanced. When the distance was but
about eight feet between them, both halted. Silence continued, broken
only by the dull drone of one engine still running on board the ship,
by the creaking of saddle-leather, the whinny of a barb.
Lithe, powerful, alert, with his cap held over his heart, the Master
stood there peering from under his thick, dark brows at the aged
Sheik. A lean-faced old man the Sheik was, heavily bearded with white,
his brows snowy, his eyes a hawk's, and the fine aquilinity of his
nose the hallmark of pure Arab blood.
Hard as iron he looked, gravely observing, unabashed in face of these
white strangers and of this mysterious flying house. The very spirit
of the Arabian sun seemed to have been caught in his gleaming eyes, to
glitter there, to reflect its pride, its ardor. He reminded one of a
falcon, untamed, untamable. And his dress, its colors distinguishing
him from the mass of his followers, still further proclaimed the rank
he occupied.
His cherchia of jade-green silk was bound with a _ukal_, or fillet
of camel's-hair; his burnous, also silk, showed tenderest shades of
lavender and rose. Under its open folds could be seen a violet jacket
with buttons of filigree ivory. He had handed his gun to the man
behind him, and now was unarmed save for a _gadaymi_, or semicircular
knife, thrust into his silk sash of crimson, with frayed edges.
A leather bandolier, wonderfully tooled and filled with cartridges,
passed over his right shoulder to his left hip. His feet, high-arched
and fine of line, were naked save for silk-embroidered _babooshes_.
The Master realized, as he gazed on this extraordinary old man, whose
dignity was such that even the bizarre _mélange_ of colors could not
detract from it, that he was beholding a very different type of Arab
from any he yet had come in contact with.
The aged Sheik salaamed. The Master returned the salutation, then
covered himself and saluted smartly. In a deep, grave voice the old
man said:
"_A'hla wasá'halan_!" (Be ye welcome!)
"_Bikum_!" (I give thee thanks!) replied the Master.
"In Allah's name, who are ye?"
"Franks," the Master said, vastly relieved at this unexpected amity.
Strange contrast with the violent hostility heretofore experienced!
What might it mean? What might be hidden beneath this quiet surface?
Relief and anxiety mingled in the Master's mind. If treachery were
intended, in just this manner would it speak.
"Men of Feringistan?" asked the aged Sheik. "And what do ye here?"
"We be fighting-men, all," replied the Master. He had already noted,
with a thrill of admiration, the wondrous purity of the old man's
Arabic. His use of final vowels after the noun, and his rejection of
the pronoun, which apocope in the Arabic verb renders necessary in
the everyday speech of the people, told the Master he was listening
to some archaic, uncorrupted form of the language. Here indeed was
nobility of blood, breed, speech, if anywhere!
"Fighting-men, all," the Master repeated, while Leclair listened
with keen enjoyment and the Legion stood attentive, with the
white-burnoused horsemen giving ear to every word--astonished, no
doubt, to hear Arabic speech from the lips of an unbeliever. "We have
traveled far, from the Lands of the Books. Is it not meritorious, O
Sheik? Doth not thy Prophet himself say: 'Voyaging is victory, and he
who journeyeth not is both ignorant and blind?"'
The old man pondered a moment, then fell to stroking his beard. The
act was friendly, and of good portent. He murmured:
"I see, O Frank, that thou hast read the Strong Book. Thou dost know
our law, even though thou be from Feringistan. What is thy name?"
"Men know me only as The Master. And thine?"
"_Bara Miyan_ (The Great Sir), nothing more."
"Dost thou wish us well?" the Master put a leading question.
"_Kull'am antum bil khair_!" (May ye be well, every year!) said the
old Sheik. The Master sensed a huge relief. Undoubtedly--hard as this
was to understand, and much as it contradicted Rrisa's prediction--the
attitude of these Jannati Shahr folk was friendly. Unless, indeed,
all this meant ambush. But to look into those grave, deep eyes, to
see that furrowed countenance of noble, straight-forward uprightness,
seemed to negative any such suspicion.
"We have come to bring ye wondrous gifts," the Master volunteered,
wanting to strike while the iron was hot.
"That is well," assented Bara Miyan. "But never before have the Franks
come to this center of the Empty Abodes."
"Even Allah had to say 'Be!' before anything was!" (_i.e._, there must
be a first time for everything).
This answer, pat from a favorite verse of the Koran, greatly pleased
Bara Miyan. He smiled gravely, and nodded.
"Allah made all men," he affirmed. "Mayhap the Franks and we be
brothers. Have ye come by way of Mecca?"
"Yea. And sorry brotherhood did the Mecca men offer us, O Sheik! So,
too, the men of Beni Harb. Together, they slew five of us. But we be
fighting-men, Bara Miyan. We took a great vengeance. All that tribe
of Beni Harb we brushed with the wing of Azraël, save only the Great
Apostate. And from the men of the 'Navel of the World'--Mecca--we
exacted greater tribute than even death!"
The Master's voice held a quiet menace that by no means escaped Bara
Miyan. Level-eyed, he gazed at the white man. Then he advanced two
paces, and in a low voice demanded:
"Abd el Rahman still lives?"
"He lives, Bara Miyan."
"Where is the Great Apostate?"
"In our flying house, a prisoner."
"_Bismillah_! Deliver him unto me, and thy people and mine shall be as
brothers!"
"First let us share the salt!"
Speaking, the Master slid his hand into the same pocket that contained
the Great Pearl Star, and took out a small bag of salt. This he
opened, and held out. Bara Miyan likewise felt in a recess of his
many-hued burnous. For a moment he hesitated as if about to bring out
something. But he only shook his head.
"The salt--not yet, O White Sheik!" said he.
"We have brought thy people precious gifts," began the Master, again.
Behind him he heard an impatient whisper--the major's voice, quivering
with eagerness:
"Ask him if this place is really all gold! Faith, if I could only talk
their lingo! Ask him!"
"I shall place you under arrest, if you interfere again," the Master
retorted, without turning round.
"What saith the White Sheik?" asked Bara Miyan, hearing the strange
words of a language his ears never before had listened to.
"Only prayer in my own tongue, Bara Miyan. A prayer that thine and
mine may become _akhawat_"[1]
[Footnote 1: Friends bound by an oath to an offensive and defensive
alliance.]
"Deliver unto me Abd el Rahman, and let thine _imams_ (priests) work
stronger magic than mine," said the old Sheik with great deliberation,
"and I will accept thy gifts and we will say: '_Nahnu malihin_!' (We
have eaten salt together!) And I will make thee gifts greater than thy
gifts to me, O White Sheik. Then thou and thine can fly away to thine
own country, and bear witness that there be Arabs who do not love to
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