George Allan England

“ Gold! Give unto us what gold our flying house can carry hence to our own land beyond the salted seas, and we will depart. Before the rising of the stars we will be gone. And the peace be unto thee, O Bara Miyan, master of the gold!"
Tension as of a wire about to snap contracted the Master's nerves, strong as they were. Leclair leaned forward, his face pale, teeth set hard into his lip.
"Yea, gold!" the Master repeated with hard-forced calm. "This is the gift we ask of thee, for the Myzab and the holy Black Stone and Kaukab el Durri—the gift of gold!" ”

“ The ghostly aura of light in the gallery showed his face wan, deep-graven with lines, agonized, ennobled by strong decisions of self-sacrifice.
"Thou, Allah," he whispered, "dost know life cannot be for both my Master and thy servant, after what thy servant hath seen. I offer thee my life for his! Thou wilt judge aright, for thou knowest the hearts of men and wilt wrong no man by the weight of a grain of sand. Thou art easy to be reconciled, and merciful! There is no God but Allah, and M'hámed is his Prophet!" ”

“ Bohannan flung up at him, blood-drabbled face pale and drawn by the flaring lamplight. "A multi-millionaire! Death? I should worry! Help myself? Faith, I just will, that!"
"Anyone else, here, feel so disposed?" the Master inquired. "If so, get it over and done with. We've got fighting ahead, and we'd better quench whatever thirst there is for wealth, first."
No one made any move. Only Bohannan's mind had been unsettled by the hoard, to the extent of wanting to possess it. Now that death loomed, empty pockets were as good, to all the rest, as any other sort. ”

“ The Legionaries heaped sand on this grim bit of death, completely burying it, and on the fluttering cloths. And as they peered abroad across the desert, in the glory of morning, now nothing could be seen to mind them of the fighting-men who, like the host of Sennacherib, had been brushed by the death-angel's wing.
The jackals knew, though, and the skulking hyenas, already sneaking in the nullahs; and so did the rion and the yellow ukab-birds—carrion-fowl, both—which already from the farthest blue, had begun to wheel and volplane toward the coast. ”

“ Still laughing, they sat down in the hot sand, near the clawlike distortions of the acacias. Consciousness lapsed. They slept. The sun's anger faded; and a steel moon, long after, slid up the sky.
Next day, many miles to south-westward of the acacias, Kismet—toying with them for its own delectation—respited them a little while by stumbling them on to a deserted oasis. They turned aside to this only after a long, irrational discussion. The fact that they could both see the same thing, and that they had really come to palm trees—trees they could touch and feel—gave them fresh courage. ”

“ Shall I scout ahead, Master, and spy out the camp?"
"No, Rrisa. I send no man where I will not gladly go myself. All three of us, forward!"
Again they advanced, watchful, revolvers in hands, ready for any sudden ambush. All at once, as they came up over a breastwork of hard clay and gravel that heaved itself into rolling sands, the camp of the Beni Harb became visible. Dim, brown and white figures were lying all about, distorted in strange attitudes, on the sand beyond the ridge. There lay the despoilers of the Haram, the robber-tribe of Sheik Abd el Rahman, helpless in blank unconsciousness. ”

“ Like a storm-wave flinging froth ashore, 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 butt of his empty pistol—a blow that crushed in the right temporal bone. ”

“ For just a second the man hung there, swaying, at the rail. Beyond him, up the tilt of the falling Nissr, brighter flames whipped back. Came a burst of smoke, another concussion, a shuddering impact that trembled through the whole vast air-liner. White-hot fire ribboned back and away, shredded into little, whirling gusts of incandescence that dissolved in black smoke.
"Take me alive, eh?" the stowaway shouted, madly. "Ha-ha! I see you!
You're all dead men, anyhow! ”

“ Bara Miyan led the way in under the colonnade, which, though of gold like all else in this, wonder city, still offered grateful shade. The perpetual glare of the golden roadways, houses, towers, balconies—even covered as many were with floating curtains of muslin or silk—had been trying to eyes and nerves. Infinitely preferable would stone or wood have been, for dwellings; but as Jannati Shahr was, so the Legion had to take it. And doubtless long generations of familiarity with it had made it wholly normal, pleasant, and innocuous to these super-Arabs. ”

“ Surely, such treason would plunge thy soul far into the depths of Eblis. When thy time cometh to walk across the burning pit, on the bridge as fine and sharp as the edge of a simitar, if it be laden with treachery to one who hath saved thy life and whose salt thou hast eaten, surely it shall not pass over, but shall fall. Far into the deeps of Jehannum it shall fall, where the Prophet says: 'Stones and men shall be the fuel of the everlasting flame!'"
"I am the Master's," repeated Rrisa, with trembling mouth. ”

“ At a height of forty-five hundred feet she sped above them, the heat of their sun-baked blackness radiating up against her wings and body. No more terrible desolation could be imagined than this rock fortress, split with chasms and unsounded gorges, where here and there more of the yellow outcrops showed. No life appeared, not even vultures. For more than an hour, Nissr's shadow leaped across this utter solitude of death.
The Master summoned Leclair, Bohannan, and "Captain Alden," and for some time gave them careful instructions which none but they were allowed to hear. ”

“ Enough power was still left in her storage-batteries to operate the air-pressure system through the floats. This air, with a huge boiling and seething of the white surf, loosened the floats from the cling of the sand; and a score of men at the tackles succeeded at high-tide in hauling Nissr far up on the beach.
Rough gear, broken ship, toiling men blind with sweat, blazing African sun, appalling isolation, vultures and jackals at work behind the dunes, and—back of all—ocean and Sahara, made a picture fit for any master-painter. We must throw only one glance at it, and pass on. ”

“ 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 Legionaries knew, now, what had caused the dull, roaring sound. Unmistakably a furious cascade was boiling, swirling away, down there at undetermined distances of blackness.
The boldest men among the little group of fugitives felt the crawl and fingering of a very great dread at their hearts. Behind them lay the labyrinth, with what pitfalls none could tell and with the Jannati Shahr men perhaps already penetrating into the crypt. Around them loomed the black, wet walls of this lowest stone dungeon with but one other exit—the pit at their feet. ”

“ Silence fell between the two men. They still huddled there in the partial protection of the wady, while all the evil jinnee of the sand-storm shrieked blackly overhead. With no further words they continued to study the wondrous thing. The fire was dying, now, burned out by the fierce blast of the storm and blown away to sea in long spindrifts of spark and vapor, white as the sand-drive itself. By the fading light little could now be seen of the Great Pearl Star. The Master replaced it in its leather bag, knotted the cord securely about the mouth of the receptacle, and pocketed it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A little after two in the afternoon, Nissr passed within far sight of the Azores, visible in cloud-rifts as little black spots sown on the waters like sparse seeds on a burnished plate of metal. This habitation of man soon slipped away to westward, and once more nothing remained but the clear, cold severity of space, with now and then a racing drift of rain below, and tumbling, stormy weather all along the sea horizons.
The Master and Bohannan spent some time together after the Azores had been dropped astern and off the starboard quarter. "Captain Alden" remained in her cabin. ”

“ This golden dyke, two and a half to three miles wide and of undeterminable length and depth, had merely been formed by strong, cunning hands into walls, battlements, houses, mosques, and minarets.
It had been carved out in situ, the soft metal being fashioned with elaborate skill and long patience. Jannati Shahr seemed, on a larger scale and a vastly more magnificent plan, something like the hidden rock-city of Petra in the mountains of Edom—a city wholly carved by the Edomites out of the solid granite, without a single stone having been laid in mortar. ”

“ 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 brain is just one great, central ganglion for the taking in of vibrations.
"The secret of life, of the universe itself, is vibration. If we understood all about that, the cosmos would have no secrets from us. So now—ah, see there, will you? See, Major, and be convinced!"
He pointed eastward, into the blazing sunrise. The out-fling of his arm betrayed more human emotion than he had yet shown. Exultation leaped to his usually impassive eyes. Surely, had not this expedition—which he had hoped would give surcease from ennui and stir the pulses—had it not already yielded dividends? ”

“ The Master loosed a knot in the cord, drew the sack open and shook into his left palm a thing of marvellous beauty and wonder.
By the dim, fitful gleam of the fire, probably the strangest and most costly necklace in the world became indistinctly visible. At sight of it, everything else was forgotten—the wrecked air-liner, the waiting Legion, the unconscious Arabs now being buried in the resistless charge of the sand-armies. Even poor Lebon, tortured slave of the Beni Harb, a lay neglected. ”

“ Dieu! May it be Sheik Abd el Rahman's tribe! May I have strength to repay the debt I owe them!"
"What debt, Lieutenant?" asked the chief.
Leclair shrugged his shoulders.
"A personal matter, my Captain! A personal debt I owe them—with interest!"
"You will have nearly a score and a half of good fighting men to help you settle your account," smiled the Master. Then, to Bohannan: "It looks now, Major, as if you'd have a chance to try your sovereign remedy." ”

“ 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. ”

“ From near the top, the Master, glancing down, could see the white-robed mass of the Arabs, the small, compact group of his own men; and, behind them all, the dim, black lines of the stranglers. But already the Olema was gesturing for him to enter the highest of the galleries.
Into this, carved in the virgin metal, both made their way. The torchlight flung strange, wavering gleams on smooth walls niched with dark embrasures. At the further end of the passage, the Olema stopped. ”