"TO PARADISE--OR HELL"
For a time the Master sat in the thickening gloom, eating the dates
and _temmin_ wafers, drinking the coffee, pondering in deep silence.
When the simple meal was ended, he plucked a little sprig of leaves
from the khat plant in the bowl, and thrust them into his mouth.
This khat, gathered in the mountains back of Hodeida, on the Red Sea
not far from Bab el Mandeb, had been preserved by a process known
to only a few Coast Arabs. The plant now in the bowl was part of a
shipment that had been more than three months on the way; yet still
the fresh aroma of it, as the Master crushed the thick-set, dark-green
leaves, scented the darkening room with perfumes of Araby.
Slowly, with the contemplative appreciation of the connoisseur, the
Master absorbed the flavor and the wondrous stimulation of the "flower
of paradise." The use of khat, his once-a-day joy and comfort, he had
learned more than fifteen years before, on one of his exploring tours
in Yemen. He could hardly remember just when and where he had first
come to know the extraordinary mental and physical stimulus of this
strange plant, dear to all Arabs, any more than he definitely recalled
having learned the complex, poetical language of that Oriental land
of mystery. Both language and the use of khat had come to him from
contact with only the fringes of the country; and both had contributed
to his vast, unsatisfied longing to know what lay beyond the forbidden
zones that walled this land away from all the world.
Wherever he had gone, whatever perils, hardships, and adventures had
been his in many years of wandering up and down the world, khat,
the wondrous, had always gone with him. The fortune he had spent
on keeping up the supply had many times over been repaid to him in
strength and comfort.
The use of this plant, containing obscure alkaloids of the
katinacetate class, constituted his only vice--if you can call a habit
such as this vice, that works great well-being and that leaves no
appreciable aftermaths of evil such as are produced by alcohol or
drugs.
For a few minutes the Master sat quite motionless, pondering. Then
suddenly he got up again, and strode to one of the westward-looking
windows. The light was almost wholly gone, now. The man's figure,
big-shouldered, compact, well-knit, appeared only as a dim silhouette
against the faded blur in the west; a blur smoky and streaked with
dull smudges as of old, dried blood.
Far below, stretching away, away, shimmered the city's million
inconsequential lights. Above, stars were peeping out--were spying
down at all this feverish mystery of human life. Some of the low-hung
stars seemed to blend with the far lights along the Palisades. The
Master's lips tightened with impatience, with longing.
"There's where it is," he muttered. "Not five miles from here! It's
there, and I've got to have it. There--a thing that can't be bought!
There--a thing that must be mine!"
Among the stars, cutting down diagonally from the north-west, crept a
tiny, red gleam. The Master looked very grim, as his eyes followed its
swift flight.
"The Chicago mail-plane, just getting in," he commented. "In half an
hour, the Paris plane starts from the Cortlandt Street aero-tower. And
beyond Paris lies Constantinople; and beyond that, Arabia--the East!
Men are going out that way, tonight! And I--stick here like an old,
done relic, cooped in _Niss'rosh_--imprisoned in this steel and glass
cage of my own making!"
Suddenly he wheeled, flung himself into the big chair by the table and
dragged the faun's head over to him. He pressed a button at the base
of it, waited a moment and as the question came, "Number, please?"
spoke the desired number into the cupped hand and ear of the bronze.
Then, as he waited again, with the singular telephone in hand, he
growled savagely:
"By Allah! This sort of thing's not going to go on any longer! Not if
I die stopping it!"
A familiar voice, issuing from the lips of the faun--a voice made
natural and audible as the living human tones, by means of a delicate
microphone attachment inside the bronze head--tautened his nerves.
"Hello, hello!" called he. "That you, Bohannan?"
"Yes," sounded the answer. "Of course I know who _you_ are. There's
only one voice like yours in New York. Where are you?"
"In prison."
"No! Prison? For the Lord's sake!"
"No; for conventionality's sake. Not legally, you understand. Not
even an adventure as exciting as that has happened to me. But
constructively in jail. _De facto_, as it were. It's all the same
thing."
"Up there in that observatory thing of yours, are you?" asked
Bohannan.
"Yes; and I want to see you."
"When?"
"At once! As soon as you can get over here in a taxi, from that
incredibly stupid club of yours. You can get to _Niss'rosh_ even
though it's after seven. Take the regular elevator to the forty-first
floor, and I'll have Rrisa meet you and bring you up here in the
special.
"That's a concession, isn't it? The sealed gates that no one else ever
passes, at night, are opened to you. It's very important. Be here in
fifteen minutes you say? First-rate! Don't fail me. Good-bye!"
He was smiling a little now as he pressed the button again and rang
off. He put the faun's head back on the table, got up and stretched
his vigorous arms.
"By Allah!" he exclaimed, new notes in his voice. "What if--what if it
_could_ be, after all?"
He turned to the wall, laid his hand on an ivory plate flush with the
surface and pressed slightly. In silent unison, heavy gold-embroidered
draperies slid across every window. As these draperies closed the
apertures, light gushed from every angle and cornice. No specific
source of illumination seemed visible; but the room bathed itself in
soft, clear radiance with a certain restful greenish tinge, throwing
no shadows, pure as the day itself.
The man pulled open a drawer in the table and silently gazed down at
several little boxes within. He opened some. From one, on a bed of
purple satin, the Croix de Guerre, with a palm, gleamed up at him.
Another disclosed an "M.M.," a Médaille Militaire. A third showed him
the "D.F.C.," or Distinguished Flying Cross. Still another contained
aviator's insignia in the form of a double pair of wings. The Master
smiled, and closed the boxes, then the drawer.
"After these," he mused, "dead inaction? Not for me!"
His dark eyes were shining with eagerness as he walked to a door
beside that through which the Arab had entered. He swung it wide,
disclosing an ample closet, likewise inundated with light. There
hung a war-worn aviator's uniform of leather, gauntlets, a sheepskin
jacket, a helmet, resistal goggles, a cartridge-belt still half full
of ammunition, a heavy service automatic.
For a moment the man looked in at these. A great yearning came upon
his face. Caressingly he touched the uniform, the helmet. He unhooked
the pistol from where it hung, and carried it back to the table.
There he laid it down, and drew up his chair in front of it. For
a moment, silence fell as he remained there studying the
automatic--silence save for the faint, far hum of the city, the
occasional melodious note of steamer-whistles on the river.
The Master's face, now that full light brought out its details, showed
a white scar that led from his right ear down along jaw and throat,
till the collar masked it. Gray hairs, beyond those of his age,
sprinkled his temples. Strangely he smiled as he observed the nicks
and deep excoriations in stock and barrel of the formidable weapon.
He reached out, took up the gun once more, weighed it, got the feel of
it, patted it with affection.
"We've been through some wonderful times together, old pal, you and
I," said he. "We thought it was all over, didn't we, for a while? But
it's not! Life's not done, yet. It's maybe just beginning! We're going
out on the long trek, _again_!"
For a while he sat there musing. Then he summoned Rrisa again, bade
him remove the tray, and gave him instructions about the guest soon
to arrive. When Rrisa had withdrawn, the Master pulled over one of the
huge atlases, opened it, turned to the map of Arabia, and fell into
deep study.
Rrisa's tapping at the door, minutes later, roused him. At his order
to advance, the door swung. The Arab ushered in a guest, then silently
disappeared. Without a sound, the door closed.
The Master arose, advancing with outstretched hand.
"Bohannan! God, but I'm glad to see you!"
Their hands met and clasped. The Master led Bohannan to the table and
gestured toward a chair. Bohannan threw his hat on the table with a
large, sweeping gesture typical of his whole character, and sat down.
And for a moment, they looked at each other in silence.
A very different type, this, from the dark, sinewed master of
_Niss'rosh_. Bohannan was frankly red-haired, a bit stout, smiling,
expansive. His blood was undoubtedly Celtic. An air of great geniality
pervaded him. His hands were strong and energetic, with oddly
spatulate fingers; and the manner in which his nails had been gnawed
down and his mustache likewise chewed, bespoke a highly nervous
temperament belied by his ruddy, almost boyish face. His age might
have been thirty-five, but he looked one of those men who never fully
grow up, who never can be old.
"Well, what's doing now?" demanded he, fixing blue eyes on his host.
He produced a cigarette and lighted it, inhaled smoke deeply and blew
a thin gray cloud toward the ceiling. "Something big, eh? by the way
you routed me out of a poker-game where I was already forty-seven
dollars and a half to the good. You don't usually call a fellow, that
way, unless there's something in the wind!"
"There is, now."
"Big?"
"Very."
"So?" The newcomer's eyes fell on the pistol. "Yes, that looks like
action, all right. Hope to heaven it _is_! I've been boring myself
and everybody else to death, the past three months. What's up? Duel,
maybe?"
"Yes. That's just it, Bohannan. A duel." And the Master fixed strange
eyes on his companion. His muscular fingers fell to tapping the
prayer-rug on the table, drumming out an impatient little tattoo.
"Duel? Lord's sake, man! With whom?"
"With Fate. Now, listen!" The Master's tones became more animated.
A little of the inward fires had begun to burn through his
self-restraint. "Listen to me, and not a word till I'm done! You're
dryrotting for life, man. Dying for it, gasping for it, eating your
heart out for it! So am I. So are twenty-five or thirty men we know,
between us, in this city. That's all true, eh?"
"Some!"
"Yes! We wouldn't have to go outside New York to find at least
twenty-five or thirty in the same box we're in. All men who've been
through trench work, air work, life-and-death work on various fronts.
Men of independent means. Men to whom office work and club life
and all this petty stuff, here, is like dish-water after champagne!
Dare-devils, all of them, that wouldn't stop at the gates of Hell!"
"The gates of Hell?" demanded Bohannan, his brow wrinkling with glad
astonishment. "What d'you mean by that, now?"
"Just what I say! It's possible to gather together a kind of
unofficial, _sub rosa_, private little Foreign Legion of our own,
Bohannan--all battle-scarred men, all men with at least one decoration
and some with half a dozen. With that Legion, nothing would be
impossible!"
He warmed to his subject, leaned forward, fixed eager eyes on
his friend, laid a hand on Bohannan's knee. "We've all done
the conventional thing, long enough. Now we're going to do the
unconventional thing. We've been all through the known. Now we're
going after the unknown. And Hell is liable to be no name for it, I
tell you that!"
The Celt's eyes were alight with swift, eager enthusiasm. He laid his
hand on the other's, and gripped it hard in hot anticipation.
"Tell me more!" he commanded. "What are we going to do?"
"Going to see the stuff that's in us, and in twenty-five or thirty
more of our kind. The stuff, the backbone, the heart that's in you,
Bohannan! That's in me! In all of us!"
"Great, great! That's me!" Bohannan's cigarette smoldered, unheeded,
in his fingers. The soul of him was thrilling with great visions. "I'm
with you! Whither bound?"
The Master smiled oddly, as he answered in a low, even tone:
"To Paradise--or Hell!"