Completely finished all save the upper part, which still remained truncated, the golden pyramid gleamed dully in the vague light, a thing of awe and wonder, grimly beautiful, fearsome to gaze up at.  For some unknown reason, as the Legionaries grouped themselves about their Master, an uncanny influence seemed to emanate from this singular object.  All remained silent, as the Olema, an enigmatic smile on his thin, bearded lips, raised a hand toward the pyramid.

“This thing, O Frank, thou shouldst see,” he remarked dryly.  “Above all, the inner chambers.  Wilt thou go with me?”

“I will go,” the Master answered.  “Lead the way!”

The Olema beckoned one of the Maghrabis, who delivered a torch of some clear-burning, resinous, and perfumed material into his hand.

“Come,” bade the old man, and gestured toward the steps of gold.

Together, in silence, they mounted toward the dim, high-arched roof.  From near the top, the Master, glancing down, could see the white-robed mass of the Arabs, the small, compact group of his own men; and, behind them all, the dim, black lines of the stranglers.  But already the Olema was gesturing for him to enter the highest of the galleries.

Into this, carved in the virgin metal, both made their way.  The torchlight flung strange, wavering gleams on smooth walls niched with dark embrasures.  At the further end of the passage, the Olema stopped.

“Here is a new trophy, just added to all that Allah hath placed in our hands,” said he, gravely.  “There are some three-and-twenty places yet left, to fill.  Wilt thou see the new trophy?”

The Master nodded silently.  Raising the torch, the Olema thrust it into one of the embrasures.  There the Master beheld a human skull.

The empty eye-sockets, peering out at him, seemed to hold a malevolent malice.  That the skull had been but freshly cleaned, was obvious.

“Abd el Rahman?” asked the Master.

“Yea, the Apostate,” answered Bara Miyan.  “At last, Allah hath delivered him to us of El Barr.”

“Thou hast used a heavy hand on the Apostate, O Sheik.”

“We of Jannati Shahr do not anoint rats’ heads with jasmine oil.  Tell me, Frank, how many men hast thou?”

“Three-and-twenty, is it not so?”

“Yea, it is so.  Tell me, Bara Miyan, this whole pyramid—­”

“Skulls, yea.”

“This is the Pyramid of Ayeshah that I have heard strange tales of?” the Master demanded, feeling even his hard nerves quiver.

“The Pyramid of Ayeshah.”

“No myth, then, but reality,” the Master commented, fascinated in spite of himself.  “Even as the famous Tower of Skulls at Jerba, in Tunis!”

“Thou hast said it, O Frank.  Here be more than ten-score thousand skulls of the enemies of Islam, of blasphemers against the Prophet, of those who have penetrated the Empty Abodes, of those who have sought to carry gold from El Barr.  It is nearly done, this pyramid.  But there still remain three-and-twenty vacant places to be filled.”