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 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 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!”