CHAPTER x.x.xVII

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 gra.s.s, 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 "ash.o.r.e," 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 Feringi had wrought, was l.u.s.ting 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, Frazier, 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 pa.s.sage 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 ma.s.s from the gate were hors.e.m.e.n, all; and they were riding full drive, _ventre a 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 ma.s.s; 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 m.u.f.fled 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 hors.e.m.e.n 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.

"d.a.m.n 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 h.e.l.l, 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.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII

BARA MIYAN, HIGH PRIEST

The crash of six machine-guns clattered into a chattering tumult, muzzles pointed high over the heads of the Jannati Shahr men. Up into the still, hot air jetted vicious spurts of flame.

The Legion's answer lasted but a minute. As the trays of blanks became empty, the tumult ceased.

Silence fell, strangely heavy after all that uproar. This silence lengthened impressively, with the ma.s.sed hors.e.m.e.n on one side, the Legionaries on the other. Between them stretched a clear green s.p.a.ce of turf. Behind loomed the vast bulk of _Nissr_, scarred, battle-worn, but powerful. Away in the distance, the glinting golden walls shimmered across the plain; and over all the Arabian sun glowed down as if a-wonder at this scene surpa.s.sing strange.