INTO THE TREASURE-CITADEL
Well might those Legionaries who had been left behind to protect Nissr
and the sacred gifts have envied the more fortunate ones now sweeping
into Jannati Shahr. The rear guard, however, formed no less essential
a part of the undertaking than the main body of the Legion.
This rear guard consisted of Grison, Menendez, Prisrend, Frazier,
and Manderson. Their orders were as follows: If the main body did not
return by midnight, or if sounds of firing were heard from the city,
or again if they received direct orders via the Master's pocket
wireless, they were at once to load the machine-guns on board the
liner. They were to carry Myzab on board, also, and with the wireless
spark detonate the explosive which would reduce the Black Stone to
dust.
This accomplished, they were to start the engines and, if possible,
make a getaway--which might be feasible for five men. If they
succeeded, they were to wheel over the city and drop the second
kappa-bomb, also all the remaining explosive, by way of punitive
measures. Well-placed hits might wipe out most of the city and, with
it, the population which had broken the Oath of the Salt.
The main body of the Legion would, of course, also perish in this
_débâcle_ if still alive; but the probability existed that before
Nissr could take the air, all would be dead.
The program was explicit. All five men of the rear guard fully
understood its every detail and all had sworn to carry it out to the
letter. Their morale remained perfect; their discipline, under the
command of Grison--left alone as they were in the midst of potentially
hostile territory and with overwhelming masses of Mohammedans close
at hand--held them as firmly as did that of the advance guard now
whirling up the wide, paved road to the gleaming gate of Jannati
Shahr.
This band of hardy adventurers, stout-hearted and armed with
service-revolvers, remained rather closely grouped, with the Arabs
flanking and following them. At their head rode old Bara Miyan with
the Master, who well bestrode his saddle with burnished metal peaks
and stitching of silver thread. After them came the three _imams_,
Major Bohannan, Leclair, and "Captain Alden."
The "captain's" mask seemed somewhat to impress the Arabs, who
whispered among themselves concerning it. But not one suspected the
sex of this Frank. The "captain" rode as gallantly as any, and with a
firm hand reined her slim, white horse.
As the on-thundering swarm of horsemen approached the pointed arch,
some sixty feet wide by ninety high, its intaglios and complex
arabesques flashing with millions of sunlit sparkles, a clear,
sustained chant drifted out over city and plain--the cry of some
unseen muezzin, announcing news of great import to Jannati Shahr. Came
an echoing call of trumpets, from far, hidden places in the city; and
kettle-drums boomed with dull reverberation.
"_Labbayk_, _Allahuma_!" shouted Bara Miyan, announcing with praise
to Allah his entrance into the City of Gold. A long, great shouting
answered him from the massed thousands of white figures on the walls.
The Master saw innumerable dark faces peering down from snowy
burnouses and haiks. He saw the gleam of steel. Not one of the figures
on the wall was veiled. Not one woman, therefore, had as yet been
permitted to leave the perfumed dimness of the harems, even for this
stupendous event in the city's history. So far as the Master could
judge, Captain Alden, lithely galloping close behind him, was the only
woman visible in all that multitude.
With a bold clatter of hoofs, now loudly echoed and hurled back by
the walls, the cavalcade burst up to the city like the foam-crest of
a huge, white wave. For a moment, as the Master's horse whirled him in
under the gate, he cast a backward glance at the plain and along the
battlements.
That glance showed him a small, white-clad band of Arabs trudging
afoot over the green expanse--the men who, dismounting, had given
their horses to the Legionaries. It showed him the pinions of _Nissr_
gleaming like snow on the velvet plain; showed him, too, the vast
sweep of the city's walls.
Those walls, no less than a hundred feet high, were cunningly
loopholed for defense. They presented a slightly concave façade to the
plain, and slanted backward at about the angle of the Tower of Pisa.
Through their aureate glimmer, dazzling in the direct rays of the
sun now well past its meridian, a glimpse of a flashing river
instantaneously impressed itself on the Master's sight, with cascading
rapids among palm-groves, as it foamed from beneath the city walls.
Then all was blotted out by the gleaming side of the stupendous
archway.
Up into a broad thoroughfare that rose on a steep slant--a
thoroughfare very different from the usual narrow, tortuous alleys of
Arabian cities--the swarm of horsemen swept, with a dull clatter of
hoofs on the soft yellow pavement that gave almost like asphalt. The
utter lack of any ruts well proved that wheeled vehicles were here
unknown. Nothing harder than unshod horses, than goats and sheep, and
the soft pads of camels had ever worn these gleaming ways.
The brush of a Verestchagin, a Gérôme, a Bida, skilled in the colors
of the Orient, would have been needed to paint even an impressionistic
_coup d'oeil_ of this scene surpassing strange, now opening out before
the Legionaries' eyes. Its elements were golden houses with door and
window-frames of cedar, sandal, and teak; fretwork golden balconies
overhanging streets and gardens where delicate palm-fronds
swayed--balconies whence no doubt kohl-tinted eyes of women were
peering at the strange men in khaki, as henna-dyed fingers pulled
aside silken curtains perfumed with musk and jasmine; mosques and
minarets carven of the precious metal; dim streets, under striped silk
awnings; a world of wonder to the Legion.
The Master saw, as the cavalcade swept along at unabated swiftness,
glimpses of terraced roofs and cupolas tiled with blue and peacock
hues; open-fronted shops hewn out of the all-present gold and
displaying wares whereof the purchase-price could not be imagined
since gold was everywhere; bazaars heaped with _babooshes_,
_cherchias_, and robes of muslin, wool and silk, with fruits and
flowers, tobacco, spices, sweetmeats, and perfumes, and with strange
merchandise unknown.
He caught swift vision of a wide _mirbad_, or open court for drying
dates; and then, through a low, golden arch, a camel-yard with a
vast number of kneeling, white dromedaries. And everywhere he saw
innumerable hosts of the people of Jannati Shahr.
The streets themselves were clear of people as the cavalcade thundered
on and on with many turnings; but every doorway, shop, arch, roof,
terrace, and tower was packed with these silent, white-clad folk,
bronze-faced and motionless, all armed with pistols, rifles, and cold
steel.
What some poet has called "a joyous fear" thrilled the Legion. No,
not fear, in the sense of timidity, but rather a realization of the
immense perils of this situation, and an up-springing of the heart to
meet those perils, to face and overcome them, and from out their very
maw to snatch rewards beyond all calculation.
Even the Master himself, tempered in the fires of war's Hell, sensed
this tremendous potentiality of death as the tiny handful of white men
galloped on and on behind Bara Miyan. Here the Legion was, hemmed and
pent by countless hordes of fanatics whom any chance word or look,
construed as a religious insult, might lash to fury. Five men remained
outside. The rest were now as drops of water in a hostile ocean. In
the Master's breast-pocket still lay Kaukab el Durri--and might not
that possession, itself, be enough to start a jihad of extermination?
Was not the fact of unbelieving dogs now for the first time being in
the Sacred City--was not this, alone, cause for a massacre? What, in
sober reason, stood between the Legion and death? Only two factors:
first, the potential destruction of the Myzab and the Black Stone
in case of treachery; and second, two tiny pinches of salt exchanged
between the Master and old Bara Miyan!
The situation, calmly reviewed, was one probably never paralleled in
the history of adventure--more like the dream of a hashish-smoking
addict than cold reality.
Very contending emotions possessed the hearts of the Legionaries, in
different reactions to their diverse temperaments. Only a vast
wonder mirrored itself in some faces, a kind of numb groping after
comprehension, a failure to believe such a thing possible as a city of
pure and solid gold.
Others showed more critical interest, appreciation of the wonderful
artistic effects of the carven gold in all its architectural
developments under the skilled chisels of the Jannati Shahr folk.
Still others manifested only greed. The eyes of such, feverishly
devouring walls, cornices, pillars, seemed to say:
"God! If we only had the smallest of these things, what a fortune that
would mean! What an incredible fortune!"
Each man, reacting under the overwhelming stimulus of this wonder
city, in his own expression betrayed the heart and soul within him.
And thus, each absorbed in his own thoughts and dreams, silently the
Legionaries pondered as they galloped through the enchanted streets.
Some fifteen minutes' riding, with no slackening of the pace and
always on an upward grade toward what seemed the central citadel of
Jannati Shahr, brought the party to an inner wall, forty feet high
and pierced by a triple-arched gate surmounted by a minaret of golden
lacery.
Through the center arch rode Bara Miyan, now reining into a canter.
The _imams_ and the Legionaries followed, and with them about fifty
of the Arabs, of superior rank. The rest drew rein outside, still in
complete silence.
The lessened cavalcade now found itself in what at first glance seemed
an enchanted garden. Not even a feeling of anxiety caused by the
silent closing of the hugely massive golden gates that, as they
passed through, immediately blocked the triple exit, could divert the
Legionaries' minds from the wondrous park confronting them.
Date and cocoa-palms with shadowy paths beneath them; clear rills with
bamboo thickets along their banks and with tangles of white myrtle,
red clouds of oleanders that diffused an almond perfume, delicate
hybiscus, and unknown flowers combined to weave a magic woof of
beauty, using the sifted sunlight for gold threads of warp.
Unseen water-wheels splashed coolly; vivid butterflies flickered
through masses of greenery among the acacia, mimosa, lote and mulberry
trees. And there were color-flashing parrots, too, a-wing and noisy
in the high branches; and apes that swung and chattered; and round the
high, golden walls of the citadel, half visible through the cloud of
green and party-colored foliage, whirls of pigeons, white as snow,
flicked against the gold.
The Legionaries were hard put to it to obey the Master's order never
to express surprise or admiration. But they kept silence, though their
eyes were busy; and presently through another smaller gate they all
clattered into a _hosh_, or court, facing what obviously must have
been the central citadel of Jannati Shahr.
Bara Miyan pulled sharply on the red, silver-broidered reins and
cut back the frothing lip of his barb. With a slide almost on its
haunches, along the soft, golden pavement, the horse came to a
quivering stand. All halted. And for a moment, the stamping of the
high-nerved horses' hoofs echoed up along the tall citadel with its
latticed windows and its machicolated parapet a hundred and fifty feet
in air.
"Well ridden, O Frank! Well ridden by thee and by all thy men
of Feringistan!" exclaimed Bara Miyan, with what seemed real
friendliness, as he sat there on his high saddle, gravely stroking his
beard. "It was a test for thee and thine, to see, by Allah! if the men
of the unbelieving nations be also men like us of Araby!
"We of the Empty Abodes are 'born on horseback.' But ye, white as the
white hand of Musa (Moses) have houses that, so I have heard, move on
iron roads. And I see now ye have flying houses. Wherefore horses are
not dear to you, as to us. But I see that ye can ride like men. Well
done! _Salaam_!"
The Master returned a "_Bïkum!_" of thanks. He would have been glad
to wipe his forehead, streaming with sweat; and so, too, would the
others. But pride restrained them. Not for them such weakness as the
use of a handkerchief, in presence of these half-hundred grave-eyed,
silently observing men of Jannati Shahr.
"Faith, though," the major whispered to "Captain Alden," close behind
him, "of all ways to take a walk, my favorite way _not_ to is on an
Arab horse with a saddle like the Inquisition! Tomorrow, oh, my poor
bones, tomorrow!"
Bara Miyan was speaking again, while the Master, Leclair, and
his orderly, Lebon--who alone of the Legionaries understood
Arabic--listened closely.
"Now that we have eaten salt and are _akhawat_ brethren," said he, "we
must break bread together. Let thyself and all thy men partake of food
with us, O Frank! Then we will speak of the present, we shall bestow
on thee. _Bismïllah!_ Dismount, White Sheik, and enter!"
The Master bowed, and swung himself from his horse. All did the same,
Legionaries and Arabs alike. And for a moment they stood there in the
sunlight before the long colonnade that occupied the lower story
of the citadel; while from beneath that colonnade issued a dozen or
fifteen of the black, muscular Maghrabi men, two of whom--in the
rôle of official stranglers--they had already seen. These powerful
half-savages took the horses away, the hoofs clacking hollowly on the
golden pavement.
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.
The Jannati Shahr men began kicking off their _babooshes_ and sliding
their naked feet into light slippers, rows upon rows of which stood
under the portico. The Master and Leclair quickly put off their
shoes and took slippers; the others followed suit. But not without
unwillingness did the Master make the change.
"This will put us at a very serious disadvantage," thought he, "in
case it comes to fighting. These people are used to going almost
barefooted. We are not. Still, there's no help for it. But I'd like
infernally well to keep my shoes!"
All he said was:
"Remember now, men, no women and no wine! If this city is like the
usual Arab towns, there will be neither in sight. But if not,
and temptations arise, remember my orders! No drop of any kind of
liquor--and no flirtation. I'll deal summarily with any man who
forgets himself. There's everything at stake now, in the next hour or
two. We can't jeopardize it all for any nonsense!"
The major groaned, inwardly. Thirsts were on his Celtic soul that
longed for dalliance with the Orient; but he well knew that tone of
voice, and sadly resigned himself to abstinence.
"Keep your revolvers loose in the holsters, men," the Master added,
as Bara Miyan gestured toward the slowly opening entrance of the
citadel--a massive door as all doors seemed in Jannati Shahr; a
door of gold reinforced with huge teak beams. "Watch for any sign
of treachery, but don't shoot until I give the order. Then, shoot to
kill! And whatever you do, stick together. Don't separate, no matter
what the provocation! Now, follow me!"
A strange feeling of anxiety, almost of fear, had taken hold on the
Master's heart. This fear was not in the least for himself or any
of the men. Hard-bitted adventurers all, they had gone into this
expedition with their eyes open, well knowing that some must
inevitably die before its close. They had gambled at dice with Fate;
and, losing, could have no complaint.
It was all for "Captain Alden" that the Master's anxiety was now
awakened. Here was a woman, not only exposed to risks of death, but
also of capture by Orientals--and what it might mean to a white woman
to be seized for some hidden harem in Jannati Shahr the Master knew
only too well. He found a moment's pause to speak in a low tone to the
"captain," unheard by any of the others.
"Remember the mercy-bullet!" said he. "If anything happens and there's
any risk of capture--remember, the last one for yourself!"
"If the worst comes," she whispered, "we can at least share death
together!"
He gazed at her a moment, not quite fathoming her words, but with an
inexplicable tightening round the heart.
"We can at least share death together!"
Why should those words so powerfully affect him? What were these
uncomprehended, new emotions stirring in his hard soul, tempered by
war and by unnumbered stern adventurings?
The Master had no skill in self-analysis, to tell him. Leader of
others, himself he did not understand. But as that night aboard Nìssr,
when he had laid a hand on the woman's cabin door, something unknown
to him seemed drawing him to her, making her welfare and her life
assume a strange import.
"Come, O Frank!" Bara Miyan was saying. The Olema's words recalled the
Master to himself with a start. "Such food and drink as we men of El
Barr have, gladly we share with thee and thine!"
The old man entered the dark doorway of the citadel, noiselessly in
soft sandals. Beside him walked the Master; and, well grouped and
flanked and followed by the Arabs in their white robes--all silent,
grave, watchful--the Legion also entered.
Behind them once more closed the massive doors, silently.
The eighteen Legionaries were pent in solid walls of metal, there in
the heart of a vast city of fighting-men whose god was Allah and to
whom all unbelievers were as outcasts and as pariah dogs--anathema.