“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: