"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 pa.s.sage 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 ma.s.sive 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 pa.s.sages from distances above, a m.u.f.fled 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 pa.s.sage; voices in blended rage and fear, in hate, agony, despair.
"G.o.d 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 h.e.l.l out o" the Black Stone?"
A wild cry echoed down the pa.s.sage. The Olema, his face suddenly distorted with a pa.s.sion of hate, s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 pa.s.sageway 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 s.p.a.ce.
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 pa.s.sions, 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 ash.o.r.e, 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 b.u.t.t 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 pa.s.sage, 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 h.e.l.l-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, b.u.t.ts, 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 ma.s.sive hinges.
As the s.p.a.ce 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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.