THE GREETING OF WARRIORS
Without delay, everything was put in complete readiness for whatever
eventualities might develop. If these strange people meant peace and
wanted it, the Legion would give them peace. If war, then by no means
was the Legion to be unprepared.
The gangplank was put down from the starboard port in the lower
gallery. The helicopters were cut off. Nothing was left running but
one engine, at half-speed, to furnish current for the apparatus the
Master had decided to use in dealing with the Jannati Shahr folk in
case of need--some of this having been evolved on the run from Mecca.
Four hampers were carried down the gangplank and set on the grass,
about fifty feet ahead of _Nissr's_ huge beak, that towered in air
over the men like an eagle over sparrows. These hampers contained the
chosen apparatus. Wires were attached, and run back to the ship, and
proper connections made at once by Leclair and Menendez, under the
Master's instructions.
The machine-guns were dismounted and taken "ashore," to borrow a
nautical phrase. These were set up in strategic positions before the
liner, and full supplies of ammunition both blank and ball were served
to them.
About a quarter of a mile to north of _Nissr's_ position, one of the
small watercourses or irrigating ditches that cut the plain glimmered
through a grove of Sayhani dates.[1] To this ditch the Master sent two
men in search of the largest stone they could find there. When they
returned with a rock some foot in diameter, he ordered it placed
half-way between _Nissr_ and the palm-grove.
[Footnote 1: Sayhani (the Crier), so called because one of these palms
is fabled to have cried aloud in salutation to Mohammed, when the
Prophet happened to walk beneath it.]
These preparations made, the Master lined up his Legionaries for
inspection and final instructions. Standing there in military array,
fully armed, they made rather a formidable body of fighters despite
their paucity of numbers. Courage, eagerness, and joy--still
unalloyed by all the fatigues and perils of the long trek after
adventure--showed on every face. Even through the eyeholes of "Captain
Alden's" mask, daring exultation glimmered.
The dead, left behind, could not now depress the Legionaries' spirits.
To be on solid earth again, in this wonderland with the Golden City
fronting them, quickened every man's pulse.
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 Master, standing there before them, called the roll. We should
listen, by way of knowing just how the Legion was now composed. It
consisted of the following: Adams, "Captain Alden," Bohannan, Bristol,
Brodeur, Cracowicz, Emilio, Enemark, Frazíer, Grison, Janina, Lebon,
Leclair, L'Heureux, Manderson, Menendez, Prisrend, Rennes, Seres,
Simonds, Wallace. All the wounded had recovered sufficiently to be of
some service. The dead were: Travers, who had died on the passage
of the Atlantic; Auchincloss and Gorlitz, burned to death; Kloof,
Daimamoto, Beziers and Sheffield, killed by the Beni Harb; Lombardo,
killed by the Meccans; Rrisa, suicide.
In addition to these, we must not forget the Sheik Abd el Rahman,
still locked a prisoner in the cabin that for some days had been his
swift-flying prison-cell of torment.
The Master had just finished checking his roster, when quite without
any preliminary disturbance a crackle of rifle-fire began spattering
from the city. And all at once, out of the gate opposite _Nissr_,
appeared a white-whirling swarm of figures, at the same time that a
green banner, bearing a star and crescent, broke out from the highest
minaret.
The figures issuing in a dense mass from the gate were horsemen, all;
and they were riding full drive, _ventre à terre_. Out into the
plain they debouched, with robes flying, with a green banner, steel
flashing, and over all, a great and continual volleying of rifle-fire.
This horde of rushing cavaliers must have numbered between five
and six hundred; and a fine sight they made as the Master got his
binoculars on them. Here, there, a bit of lively color stood out
vividly against the prevailing snowy white of the mass; but for the
most part, horses and men alike came rushing down like a drive of
furious snow across that wondrous green slope between the palm-groves
and the city wall.
As they drew near, the snapping of burnouses and cherchias in the
wind, the puffs of powder-smoke, the glint of brandished arms grew
clearer; and now, too, the muffled sound of kettle-drums rolled
down-breeze, in booming counterpoint to the sharp staccato of the
rifles.
Furious as an army of _jinnee_ with wild cries, screams, howls, as
they stood in their stirrups and discharged their weapons toward the
sky, the horsemen of Jannati Shahr drove down upon the little group of
Legionaries.
The major loosened his revolver in its holster. Others did the same.
At the machine-guns, the gunners settled themselves, waiting the
Master's word of command to mow into the white foam of that insurging
wave--a wave of frantic riders and of lathering Nedj horses,
the thunder of whose hoofs moment by moment welled up into a
heart-breaking chorus of power.
"Damn it all, sir!" the major exclaimed. "When are you going to rip
into them? They'll be on us, in three minutes--in two! Give 'em Hell,
before it's too late! Stop 'em!"
Leclair smiled dryly behind his lean hand, as the Master emphatically
shook a head in negation.
"No, Major," he said. "No machine-guns yet. You and your eternal
machine-guns are sometimes a weariness to the flesh." He raised his
voice, above the tumult of the approaching storm of men and horses.
"I suppose you've never even heard of the _La'ab el Barut_, the
powder-play of the Arabs? They are greeting us with their greatest
display of ceremony--and you talk about machine-guns!"
He turned, lifted his hand and called to the gunners:
"No mistakes now, men! No accidents! The first man that pulls a
trigger at these people, I'll shoot down with my own hand!"
The lieutenant touched the Master's arm.
"We must give them a return salute, my Captain," he said in Arabic.
"To omit that would be a grave breach of the laws of host and
guest--almost as bad as violating the salt!"
The Master nodded.
"That is quite true, Lieutenant," he answered. "Thank you for
reminding me!"
Once more he turned to the gunners.
"Load with blanks," he commanded, "and aim at an elevation of
forty-five degrees. Hold your fire till I give the word!"
"It is well, _Effendi_!" approved the lieutenant, his eyes gleaming
with Gallic enthusiasm. "These are no People of the Black Tents, no
Beni Harb, nor thieving Meccans. These are men of the very ancient,
true Arabic blood--and we must honor them!"
Already the rushing powder-play was within a few hundred yards.
The roar of hoofs, the smashing volleys of fire, raging of the
kettle-drums, wild-echoing yells of the white company deafened the
Legionaries' ears.
What a sight that was--archaic chivalry in all the loose-robed flight
and flashing magnificence of rushing pride! Not one, not even the
least imaginative of the Legion, but felt his skin crawl, felt his
blood thrill, with stirrings of old romance at sight of this strange,
exalting spectacle!
In the van, an ancient horseman with bright colors in his robe was
riding hardest of all, erect in his high-horned saddle, reins held
loose in a master-hand, gold-mounted rifle with enormously long barrel
flourished on high.
Tall old chief and slim white horse of purest barb breed seemed almost
one creature. Instinctively the Master's service-cap came off, at
sight of him. The lieutenant's did the same. Both men stepped forward,
cap over heart. These two, if no others, understood the soul of
Arabia.
Suddenly the old Sheik uttered a cry. An instant change came over the
rushing horde. With one final volley, silence fell. The kettle-drums
ceased their booming. Every rider leaned far back in his pearl-inlaid,
jewel-crusted saddle, reining in his horse.
And in a moment, as innumerable unshod hoofs dug the heavy turf, all
that thundering host--which but a second before had seemed inevitably
bound to trample down the Legion under a hurricane of white-lathered
horses and frenzied, long-robed men--came to a dead halt of silence
and immobility.
It was as if some magician's wand, touching the crest of an inbreaking
storm-wave, had instantaneously frozen it, white-slavering foam and
all, to motionless rigidity.
Ahead of all, standing erect and proud in his arabesque stirrups, with
the green banner floating overhead, the chief of this whole marvelous
band was stretching out the hand of salaam.
"_Fire_!" cried the Master.