"Eh, what? Thy heart then, hath turned to water? Thou canst not kill?
They attacked us--this is justice!"
"And if they live, they will surely wipe us out!" put in the Frenchman, staring in the gloom. "What meaneth this old woman"s babble, son of the Prophet?"
"It is not that my heart hath turned to water, nor have the fountains of mine eyes been opened to pity," answered Rrisa. "But some things are worse than death, to all of Arab blood. To be despoiled of arms or of horses, without a fight, makes an Arab as the worm of the earth.
Then he becometh an outcast, indeed! "If you would rule, disarm"," he quoted the old proverb, and added another: ""Man unarmed in the desert is like a bird shorn of wings.""
"What is thy plain meaning in all this?" demanded the chief.
"Listen, _M"alme_. If you would be the Sheik of Sheiks, carry away all these weapons, and let these swine awaken without them. They would drag their way back to the oases and the black tents, with a story the like of which hath never been told in the Empty Abodes. The Sahara would do homage, Master, even as if the Prophet had returned!"
"_Lah_! I am not thinking of the Sahara. The goal lies far beyond--far to eastward."
"Still, the folk are Arabs there, too. They would hear of this, and bow to you, my _M"alme_!"
"Perhaps. Perhaps not. I can take no chances, Rrisa. The land, here and to the eastward, might all arise against us. The tribes might come against us like the _rakham_, the carrion-vultures. No, we must kill and kill, so that no man remaineth here--none save old Abd el Rahman, if Allah deliver him into our hands!"
"That is your firm command, Master?"
"My firm command!"
"To hear the Master is to obey. But first, grant me time for my _isha_, my evening prayer!"
"It is granted. And, Rrisa, _there_ is the _kiblah_, the direction of Mecca!"
The Master pointed exactly east. Rrisa faced that way, knelt, prostrated himself. He made ablution with sand, as Mohammed allows when water cannot be found. Even as he poured it down his face, the strangely gusting wind flicked it away in little whirls.
CHAPTER XXV
THE GREAT PEARL STAB
The Master began to feel a peculiar anxiety. Into the east he peered, where now indeed a low, steady hum was growing audible, as of a million angry spirits swarming nearer. The stars along that horizon had been blotted out, and something like a dark blanket seemed to be drawing itself across the sky.
"My Captain," said the lieutenant, "there may be trouble brewing, close at hand. A sand-storm, unprotected as we are--"
"Men with stern work to do cannot have time to fear the future!"
Leclair grew silent. Rrisa alone was speaking, now. With a call of "_Ya Latif!_" (O Merciful One!) he had begun the performance of his ceremony, with rigid exactness. He ended with another prostration and the usual drawing down of the hands over the face. Then he arose, took up his javelin again, and with a clear conscience--since now his rites had all been fulfilled--cried aloud:
"Now, Master, I am ready for the work of helping Azrael, the death-angel, separate the souls and bodies of these Shiah heretics!"
A sudden howling of a jackal startled Rrisa. He quivered and stood peering into the night, where now the unmistakable hum of an approaching sand-storm was drawing near. His superst.i.tious soul trembled with the old belief of his people that creatures of the dog breed can see Azrael, invisible to human eyes. At thought of the death-angel standing nigh, his heart quaked; but rage and hate inspired him, and he muttered:
"Fire to your bellies, broiling in white flame! Fuel of Jehannum, may Eblis be your bed, an unhappy couch! Sp.a.w.n of Shaytan (Satan), boiling water to cool your throats! At Al Hakkat (judgment day) may the _jinnee_ fly away with you!"
"To work, men!" cried the Master. "There is great work to do!"
As if in answer to his command, a bl.u.s.tering, hot buffet of wind roared down with amazing suddenness, filling the dark air with a stinging drive of sand. The fire by the beach flailed into long tongues of flame, throwing black shadows along the side of the wady.
No stars were now visible. From empty s.p.a.ces, a soughing tumult leaped forth; and on the instant a furious gust of fine, cutting particles whirled all about, thicker than driven snow in a northern blizzard.
"Iron, O thou ill-omened one!" cried Rrisa, with the ancient invocation against the sand-storm. He stretched out his forefinger, making the sign of protection. Neither the meaning of his cry nor of the gesture could he have explained; but both came to him involuntarily, from the remote lore of his people.
He turned from the oncoming storm, leaning against the wind, clutching for his cap that the wind-devil had just whirled away. After it he stumbled; and, falling to his knees, groped for it in the gloom.
"Thousand devils!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the Frenchman. "No time, now, for killing! Lucky if we get back ourselves, alive, to the beach! My Captain!"
"What now?" the Master flung at him, shielding mouth and eyes with cupped hands.
"To the wady, all of us! That may give protection till this blast of h.e.l.l pa.s.ses!"
A startled cry from Rrisa forestalled any answer. The Arab"s voice rose in a wild hail from the sand-filled dark:
"O _M"alme_, _M"alme!_"
"What, Rrisa?"
"Behold! I--_I have found him!_"
"Found--?" shouted the Master, plunging forward.
Leclair followed close, staggering in the sudden gale. "_Abd el Rahman?_"
"The old hyena, surely! _M"alme, M"alme! See!_"
The white men stumbled with broken e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns to where Rrisa was crouched over a gaunt figure in the drifting sand.
"Is that he, Rrisa?" cried the Master. "Art thou sure?"
"As that my mother bore me! See the old jackal, the son of Hareth!
(the devil). Ah, see, see!"
"_Dieu_!" exclaimed the Frenchman, in his own tongue. "It is none other!" With a hand of great rejoicing, he stirred the unconscious Sheik--over whom the sand was already sifting as the now ravening simoom lashed it along.
Forgotten now were all his fears of death in the sand-storm. This delivery of the hated one into his hands had filled him with a savage joy, as it had the two others.
"Ah, _mon vieux!_" he cried. "It is only the mountains that never meet, in time!"
The Master laughed, one of those rare flashes of merriment that at infrequent intervals pierced his austerity. Away on the growing sand-storm the wind whipped that laugh. Simoom and sand now appeared forgotten by the trio. Keen excitement had gripped them; it held them as they crouched above the Sheik.
"Allah is being good to us!" exulted the Master, peering by the gale-driven fire-glare. "This capture is worth more to the Legion than a hundred machine-guns. What will not the orthodox tribes give for this arch-Shiah, this despoiler of the sacred Haram at Mecca?"
He began feeling in the bosom of the old man, opening the cloaklike burnous and exploring the neck and chest with eager fingers.
"If we could only lay hands on the fabled loot of the Haram!" he whispered, his voice tense with excitement.