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.
"God!" 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, sacrés cochons!" shouted Leclair, emptying his pistol at the pursuers. The Master thrust him back. The door clanged shut; down dropped another bar.
Bohannan laughed madly. The fighting-blood was leaping in his veins.
"Oh, the grand fight!" he shouted. "God, the grand old fight!"
Confused voices, crying out in Arabic, wheeled the Master from the door.
This inner chamber, very much smaller than the outer, was well lighted by still more lamps, though here all were of chased silver.
At the far end, four dim figures were visible. Black faces peered in wonder. The Legionaries caught sight of giant simitars, of fluttering white robes as the figures advanced.
"By Allah!" a hoarse shout echoed. "Look, Mustapha! The Feringi!"
In the shadows at the other end, the amazed Maghrabi swordsmen hesitated one precious moment. White-rimmed eyes stared, teeth gleamed through distorted lips.
These gigantic mudirs, or Keepers of the Treasure, had expected the opening of the door to show them the Feringi, indeed, but preceded by Bara Miyan and surrounded by men of Jannati Shahr.
Now they beheld the dogs of unbelievers all alone, there, with guns in hands, with every sign of battle. They had heard sounds of war, from without. Their dull minds, slowly reacting, could not grasp the significance of all this.
"The Feringi, Yusuf," cried another voice. "And they are alone! What meaneth this?"
"M'adri" (I know not), ejaculated still another. "But kill—kill!"
Their attack was hopeless, but its bravery ranked perfect. Their shouting charge down the chamber, sabers high, ended in grunting sprawls of white. Not half-naked like the low-caste Maghrabi outside, but clad in Arab fashion, they lay there, with Legionaries' bullets in breast and brain.
The Master smiled, grimly, as he walked to one of the bodies and stirred it with his naked foot. He swung above it a silver lamp he had pulled down from the wonderfully arabesqued wall.
"Four scimitars added to our equipment will be useful, at close quarters," he opined very coolly, unmindful of the dull uproar now battering at the inner door. "Pick up the cutlery, men, and don't forget the admirable qualities of the arme blanche!"
Himself, he took one of the long, curved blades. The major, Leclair, and Ferrara—an expert swordsman he had been, in the Italian army—possessed themselves of the others.
Bohannan whistled his scimitar through the air.
"Very fine I call it!" he exclaimed, with a joyful laugh. "Some little game of tag, what? And our Moslem friends are still 'it!' We're still ahead!"
"And likely to be, till our friends bring powder, mine that door, and blow it in!" The Master added: "We've still a few minutes—maybe more. Now, then—"
A shrill cry in French, from Lebon, drew all eyes away to the left of the small chamber.
"Voilà!" the lieutenant's orderly was vociferating. They saw his distorted, torture-broken hand wildly gesticulating toward the floor. "My Lieutenant, behold!"
"In the name of God, what now?" Leclair demanded, scimitar in hand. The silver lamps struck high-lights from that gleaming blade, as he turned toward his orderly. Never had he seen the man seized and shaken by excitement as at this moment. "What hast thou found, Lebon? What?"
"But behold—behold!" choked the orderly. Articulation failed him. He stammered into unintelligible cries. The Legionaries crowded toward him. And in the dumb stupefaction that overcame them, the roaring tumult at the door was all forgotten. The sentence of death hanging above them, faded to nothing.
Even the Master's cold blood leaped and thrilled, at realization of what he was now beholding as the silver lamps swung from out-stretched hands. Bohannan, for once, was too dazed for exuberance.
Only the Master could find words.
"Well, men," said he, in even tones. "Here it is, at last. We're seeing something no Feringi ever saw before—the hidden treasure of Jannati Shahr!"