The eyes of “Captain Alden” narrowed with sudden, painful emotion as she peered at the Master.  With some smattering of Arabic, she may have caught something of the sense of this offer.  But the Master, unmoved by this second offer of Olema’s, merely shook his head again, saying: 

“No, Bara Miyan.  Though thy women be fair as the dawn over the Sea of Oman, and soft-eyed as the gazelles in the oasis of the Wady el Ward (Vale of Flowers), not for us are they.  We seek other rewards.  Therefore will I ask thee still another question.”

“Thy question shall be answered, O Frank!”

“Is it true that the Caliph el Walid, in Hegira 88, sent forty camel-loads of cut jewels to Mecca?”

“That is true.”

“And that, later, all those jewels were brought hither?”

“Even so!  It is also true that two Franks in Hegira 550, digged a tunnel into the Meccan treasury from a house they had hired in the guise of Egyptian Hujjaj.  They were both beheaded, White Sheik, and their bodies were burned to ashes.”

“No doubt,” the Master answered, nonchalantly.  “But they had brought no rich gifts to the Meccans.  Therefore, now speaking of these forty camel-loads of cut jewels, O Bara Miyan—­”

“It is in thy mind to ask for those, White Sheik?”

“Allah giveth thee two hearts, Bara Miyan, as well as the riches of Karun.  Surely, ‘the generous man is Allah’s friend,’ and thy hand is not tied up."[1]

[Footnote 1:  “To have two hearts” (dhu’kulbein) signifies to be prudent, wise.  Karun is the Arabic Croesus.  “Thy hand is tied up” is equivalent to calling a man niggardly.]

The Olema, a quick decision gleaming in his eyes—­though what that decision might be, who could tell?—­put down the amber mouthpiece and with an eloquent, lean hand gestured toward a silk-curtained doorway at the right of the vast hall.

“Come with me, then, White Sheik!” said he, arising and beckoning his white-robed sub-chiefs.  He raised a finger in signal to the Maghrabis, though what the signal might mean, the Legionaries could not know.  “Come, with all thy men.  And, by Allah!  I will show thee the things whereof thou dost speak to me.  I will show thee all these things—­and others!

“Come!”

In silence the Legionaries followed old Bara Miyan through the curtained doorway; and after them came the sub-chiefs.  The Maghrabi stranglers, noiseless and bare-footed, fell in behind; a long ominous line of black human brutes, seeming hardly above the intellectual level of so many gorillas.

Stout-hearted as the Legionaries were, a kind of numbing oppression was closing in upon them.  City battlements and double walls of inner citadel, then massive gates and now again more doors that closed behind them, intervened between them and even the perilous liberty of the plain of El Barr.  And, in addition to all this, some hundreds of thousands of Arabs, waiting without, effectually surrounded them, and the Maghrabi men cast their black shadow, threatening and ominous, over the already somber enough canvas.