ON, TO THE GOLDEN CITY!
The Spartan simplicity of the proceedings impressed the Master far
more than any Oriental ceremony could have done. Here was the Olema,
or high priest and chief, of a huge city carved of virgin gold, coming
to meet him on horseback and speaking to him face to face, like a man.
It was archaic, patriarchal, dramatic in the extreme. No incensed
courts, massed audiences, tapestried walls, trumpeting heralds,
genuflexions, could have conveyed half the sense of free, virile power
that this old Bara Miyan gave as he stood there on the close turf,
under the ardent sun, and with a wave of his slim hand gave the order:
"The magic! To the testing of the magic!"
Thoroughly well pleased with progress thus far, the Master turned back
to give final instructions to his men and to examine the apparatus.
This was in perfect condition, all grouped with controls centered in
one switchboard and focussing-apparatus so that Brodeur, in charge,
could instantly execute any command.
Bara Miyan, clapping his hands again, summoned three horsemen who
dismounted and came to him. By the emerald color of their head-fillets
and jackets, as well as by their tonsure, the Master recognized them
as mystics of the class known as _Sufis._
That he was about to face a redoubtable test could not be doubted.
Long experience with Orientals had taught him the profundity of their
legerdemain, practically none of which ever has been fathomed by white
men. The Master realized that all his powers might be tried to the
utmost to match and overcome the demonstration of the Jannati Shahr
folk.
While Bara Miyan stood talking to the three _Sufis_, the Master was in
a low voice instructing his own men.
"Everything now depends on the outcome of the approaching contest,"
said he. "These people, irrespective of what we show them, will
probably evince no surprise. If we allow any sign or word of
astonishment to escape us, no matter what they do, they will consider
us beaten and we shall lose all. There must be no indication of
surprise, among you. Remain impassive, at all costs!" He turned to
Brodeur, and in French warned him:
"Remember the signals, now. One mistake on your part may cost my
life--more than that, the lives of all the Legion. Remember!"
"Count on me, my Captain!" affirmed Brodeur. The masked woman, coming
to the Master's side, said also in French:
"I have one favor to ask of you!"
"Well, what?"
"Your life is worth everything, now. Mine, nothing. Let me subject
myself--"
He waved her away, and making no answer, turned to the Olema.
"Hast thou, O Bara Miyan," he asked in a steady voice, "a swordsman
who can with one blow split a man from crown to jaw?"
"Thou speakest to such a one, White Sheik!"
"Take, then, a simitar of the keenest, and cut me down!"
The old man turned, took from the hand of a horseman a long, curved
blade of razor-keenness and with a heavy back. The Master glanced
significantly at Brodeur, who knelt by the switchboard with one
steady hand on a brass lever, the other on the control of a complex
ray-focussing device.
Toward Bara Miyan the Master advanced across the turf. He came close.
For a moment the two men eyed each other silently.
"Strike, son of the Prophet!" cried the Master.
Up whirled the Olema's blade, flickering in the sun. The metallic
_click_ of the brass switch synchronized with that sweep; Brodeur
shifted the reflector by the fraction of a degree.
Bara Miyan's arm grew rigid, quivered a second, then dropped inert.
From his paralyzed hand the simitar fell to the grass. Brodeur threw
off the ray; and the Master, unsmiling, stooped, picked up the blade
and with a salaam handed it back, hilt-first, to the old man.
Only with his left hand could Bara Miyan accept it. He spoke no word,
neither did any murmur run through the massed horsemen. But the shadow
of a deep astonishment could not quite veil itself in the profound
caverns of the old man's eyes.
"Strike again, Bara Miyan," invited the Master. "The other arm,
perhaps, may not have lost its cunning!"
The Olema shook his head.
"No, by Allah!" he replied. "I know thy magic can numb the flesh, and
it is a good magic. It is strong. But by the rising of the stars--and
that is a great oath--the bullets of our long rifles can pierce thine
unbelieving body!"
"Then bring six of thy best riflemen and station them a dozen
paces from me," the Master challenged. "Let them look well to their
cartridges. It is not I who load the guns with bullets made of
soft black-lead, as the _Effendi_ Robert-Houdin did long ago to the
confusion of the Marabouts in Algeria. No, let thy men load their
own rifles. But," and his voice grew mocking, "let their aim be good.
Death is nothing, O Bara Miyan, but clumsy shooting means much pain."
His tone galled the aged Sheik, despite that impassive exterior. Bara
Miyan beckoned, and with a command brought six riflemen from their
horses.
"Load well, and shoot me this Frank!" exclaimed the Olema. A fire was
burning in his eyes.
"_Aywa_!" (Even so!) replied one of the riflemen. "Allah will make it
easy for us!"
"Have no fear, Bara Miyan," another said. "Not so easily shall El Kisa
(the People of the Garment) be overcome by the Feringi!"
Tension held Arabs and Legionaries, alike. All remained calm, though
had you watched "Captain Alden," you would have seen her fingers
twisting together till the blood almost started through the skin.
The Master walked a few paces, turned and faced the squad.
"Ready, men of Jannati Shahr?" asked he, with a smile.
"We are ready, Unbeliever!"
"Then fire!"
Up came the rifles. Brodeur turned a knurled disk, and from one of the
boxes on the grass a sudden, whining hum arose, like millions of angry
hornets.
"_Fire_!" repeated the Master.
Six rifle-hammers fell with dull clicks. Nothing more.
The Master smiled in mockery.
"O Bara Miyan," said he, "let thy men reload and fire again! Perhaps
the sweat of a great anxiety hath wet their powder!"
"Thou must indeed be _Khalil Allah_" (a friend of Allah), he admitted.
"No doubt thou art a great _caïd_ in thy own country. It is strong
magic, Frank. But now behold what mine _imams_ can do!"
The riflemen, disgruntled but still, Arab-like, holding their
impassivity, returned to their horses and mounted again. At another
call of Bara Miyan, three _imams_ came from among the horsemen. They
were dressed alike, in brilliant saffron _gandouras_, with embroidered
muslin turbans from under which hung _daliks_, or sacred plaits of
hair; and each carried a plain white cloth in his hand.
In complete silence they showed the Legionaries both sides of these
cloths, then spread them on the grass. In not more than two minutes,
a slight fluttering became visible. This increased and grew more
agitated. One by one, the _imams_ gathered up the cloths, opened them
and exhibited three bluish-black birds with vivid scarlet crests.
The Master nodded.
"It is an old trick," said he, indifferently. "I have seen hawks,
much larger, come from under smaller cloths even in the great _suk_
(market-place) at Cairo."
Bara Miyan made no answer. The _imams_ drew knives from their belts of
plaited goat-hide, and without more ado severed the birds' heads.
This the Legionaries saw with perfect distinctness. The blood on
the feathers was entirely visible. The bodies quivered. Calmly the
_imams_, with reddened hands, now cut wings and legs from the bodies.
They laid these dead fragments on the blood-stained cloths in front of
them.
"Let every Frank behold!" exclaimed the Olema. The Legionaries drew
near. The _imams_ gathered up the fragments in the cloths.
"Now," said the Master, "thine _imams_ will toss these cloths in the
air, and three whole birds will fly away. The cloths will fall to
earth, white as snow. Is that not thy magic?"
Bara Miyan glowered at him with evil eyes. Not yet had his
self-control been lost; but this mocking of the unbeliever had kindled
wrath. The Master, however, wise in the psychology of the Arab, only
laughed.
"This is very old magic," said he. "It is told of in the second
chapter of Al Koran, entitled 'The Cow;' only when Ibrahim did this
magic he used four birds. Well, Bara Miyan, command thine _imams_ to
do this ancient magic!"
The sharp click of a switch on the control-board sounded as the imams
picked up the little, red-dripping bundles. Silently they threw these
into the air and--all three dropped back to earth again, just as they
had risen.
A growl burst, involuntarily, from the Olema's corded throat. The
growl echoed through the massed horsemen. Bara Miyan's hand went to
the butt of his pistol, half glimpsed under his jacket. That hand
fell, numb.
"Look, O Sheik!" exclaimed the Master, pointing. The Olema turned;
and there on the highest minaret of gold, the green flag had begun
smoldering. As Brodeur adjusted his ray-focusser, the banner of the
Prophet burst into bright flame, and went up in a puff of fire.
Only by setting teeth into his lip could the Sheik repress a cry. Dark
of face, he turned to the Master. Smiling, the Master asked:
"Perhaps now, O Bara Miyan, thou wouldst ask thine _imams_ to plant
a date-stone, and make it in a few minutes bear fruit, even as the
Prophet himself did? Try, if thou hast better fortune than with the
birds! But have care not to be led into committing sin, as with these
birds--for remember, thou hast shed blood and life hath not returned
again, and El Barr is sacred from the shedding of blood!"
His tone was well calculated to make the lesson sink well to the
Olema's heart--a valuable lesson for the Legion's welfare. But the
Olema only replied:
"The blood of believers is meant. Not of animals--or Franks!"
"And wilt thou make further trial with me?" demanded the Master.
"No, by the Prophet! It is enough!" The Master's soul warmed toward
the honesty of this bluff old Arab. "Thy magic is good magic. Give me
thy salt, Frank, and take mine!"
The Master signaled to Brodeur as he drew forth his bag of salt. He
stretched it out in his open palm; and all at once, bag, hand, and arm
up to the elbow enveloped themselves in a whirling mist and vanished
from sight, even as the Master's whole body had vanished in the cabin
when Leclair had tried to arrest him.
The Sheik's eyes grew white-rimmed with astonishment. Vaguely he
groped for the Frank's hand, then let his own fall limp.
"_Allahu akbar!_" he gasped.
The Master nodded at Brodeur. The droning of the apparatus ceased, and
again the hand became visible.
"Faith!" the major's voice was heard. "We've landed half a dozen home
runs, and they've never even got to second!"
"Come, O Bara Miyan!" the Master smiled. "Now we will put away the
things of magic, and talk the words of men. Here is my salt!"
The Sheik gingerly accepted a pinch, and with much misgiving put it
into his mouth. He produced salt of his own, which the Master tasted.
"It is done," said the Master. "Now thou and I are _akhawat. Nahnu
malihin._" (We have eaten salt.)
"But only from this mid-day till noon of the morrow," the Olema
qualified the bond.
"Even so! Remember, though, that the salt is now in the stomachs of
all thy people, both here and in the city, as it is in the stomachs of
all my men!"
"I will remember."
"And now, O Bara Miyan, I will show thee the very great gifts that I
have brought thee!"
The Olema nodded, in silence. A great dejection held him and his men.
The Master dispatched half a dozen men for the Myzab and the Black
Stone, also for three sticks of a new explosive he had developed on
the run from the Sahara. This explosive, he calculated, was 2.75 times
more powerful than TNT.
"Men," said he to the remaining Legionaries, "be ready now for
anything. If they show fight, when they realize we have touched the
sacred things of Islam, let them have it to the limit. If the salt
holds them, observe the strictest propriety.
"Some of us may go into the city. Let no man have any traffic with
wine or women. If we commit no blunder, in less than twenty-four hours
we shall be far away, each of us many times a millionaire. Watch your
step!"
The six men returned, carrying the blanket that contained the sacred
things. At the Master's command, they laid the heavy bundle on the
grass before the Olema and his beaten men.
"Behold!" cried the Master. "Gifts without price or calculation! Holy
gifts rescued from unworthy hands, to be delivered into the hands of
True Believers!"
And with swift gestures he flung back the enveloping folds of the
blanket, as if only he, the Master, could do this thing. Then, as the
Myzab and the Stone appeared, he drew from his pocket the Great Pearl
Star, and laid that also on the cloth, crying in a loud voice:
"O, Bara Miyan, and people of Jannati Shahr, behold!"
An hour from that time, the Master and seventeen of the Legionaries
were on their way to the City of Gold.
The stupefaction of the Arabs, their prostrations, cries, prayers
would delay us far too long, in the telling. But the Oath of the Salt
had held; and now reward seemed very near.
There could be no doubt, the Master reflected as he and his men
galloped on the horses that had been assigned to them, with the
white-robed and now silent horde, that the reward--in the form of
exchange gifts--would be practically anything the Legionaries might
ask and be able to carry away.
Treachery was now not greatly to be feared. Even had the salt not
held, fear of the explosive would restrain any hostile move. One stick
of the new compound, exploded at a safe distance by wireless spark,
had utterly demolished the stone which had been brought from the
watercourse.
The plain statement given Bara Miyan that the Myzab and the Black
Stone must be left on the grass until the Feringi had again flown away
toward their own country, had duly impressed the Arabs. They had seen
two sticks of the explosive laid on the holy objects, and well had
understood that any treachery would result in the annihilation of the
most sacred objects of their faith.
The Master felt, as well he might, that he absolutely held the whip
hand of the Jannati Shahr people. Elation shone in his face and in the
faces of all. The problem now had simplified itself to just this:
What weight of jewels and of gold could _Nissr_, by jettisoning every
dispensable thing, whatsoever, carry out of El Barr, over the Iron
Mountains and the Arabian Desert, back to the civilization that would
surely make peace with the Legion which would bring such incalculable
wealth?
Even the Master's level head swam a little, and his cool nerves
tingled, as he sat on his galloping white horse, riding beside the
Olema, with the thunder of the rushing squadrons--Arabs and his own
men--like music of vast power in his ears.
He did not, however, lose the coldly analytic faculty that weighed
all contingencies. The adventure still was critical; but the scales
of success seemed lowering in favor of the Legion. The feel, in his
breast pocket, of the leather sack containing Kaukab el Durri, which
he had again taken possession of after the magic tests, gave added
encouragement. This, the third gift, was to be delivered only at the
last moment, just before _Nissr_ should roar aloft.
"I think," reflected the Master, "the Pearl Star is an important
factor. It certainly will put the final seal of success on this
extraordinary bargain."
While his thoughts were busy with the pros and cons of the
soul-shaking adventure now coming to its climax, his eyes were busy
with the city wall and towers every moment closer, closer still.
The Master's knowledge of geology gave him the key to the otherwise
inexplicable character of Jannati Shahr. This gold, in incredible
masses, had not been mined and brought hither to be fashioned into a
great city.
Quite the contrary, it formed part of the cliffs and black mountains
themselves. Some stupendous volcanic upheaval of the remote past had
cleft the mountain wall, and had extruded through the "fault" a huge
"dyke" of virgin metal--to use technical terms. 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.
Wonderful beyond all words as the early afternoon sun gleamed from
its broad-flung golden terraces and mighty walls--whereon uncounted
thousands of white figures had massed themselves--the "Very Heavenly
City" widened to the Legionaries' gaze.
On, up the last slope of the grassy plain the rushing horsemen bore.
Into a broad, paved way they thundered, and so up, on, toward the
great gate of virgin gold now waiting to receive them.