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!"