"G.o.d!" 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 tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs!" 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 ma.s.sive 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 h.e.l.l 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 G.o.d"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 pa.s.sage 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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.
"G.o.d!" 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.