Everything but a fight to the finish was forgotten.  Only one man even thought of Nissr and of what probably had happened out there on the plain.  This man was Leclair.

“Dieu!” he grunted.  “An accident, eh?  Something must have gone wrong—­or did the brown devils attack?  I hope our men outside made good slaughter of these Moslem pigs, before they died.  Eh, my Captain?”

“Well?”

“Is it not possible that Nissr and our men still live?  That they will presently bombard the city?  That they may rescue us?”

The Master shook his head.

“They may live,” he answered, “but as for rescuing us—­” His gesture completed the idea.  Suddenly he pointed.

“See!” he cried.  “Another door!”

CHAPTER XLIV

INTO THE JEWEL-CRYPT

It was time some exit should be discovered.  The tumult had notably increased, at the barred entrance.  The staples could not hold, much longer.

The Legionaries pressed forward.  At the far end of the chamber, another door was indeed visible; smaller than the first, low, almost square, and let into a deep recess in the elaborately carved wall of gold.

Barefooted, in their socks, or some still in slippers, they reached this door.  A little silence fell on them, as they inspected it.  One man coughed, spitting blood.  Another wheezed, with painful respiration.  The smell of sweat and blood sickened the air.

“That’s some door, all right!” judged Bohannan, peering at its dark wood, heavily banded with iron.  “Faith, but they’ve got a padlock on that, big enough to hold the Pearly Gates!”

“It is only a question, now, of the key,” put in Leclair, with French precision.

“Faith, here’s a trap!” the Irishman continued.  “A trap, for you!  And thirteen rats in it!  Lucky, eh?”

“In Jananti Shahr,” the memory of a sentence flashed to the Master, “we do not anoint rats’ heads with jasmine oil!” But all he said was:  “Light, here!  Bring lamps!”

Three Legionaries obeyed.  The flare of the crude wicks, up along the door, showed its tremendous solidity.

“A little of our explosive would do this business,” the Master declared.  “But it’s obvious nothing short of that would have much effect.  I think, men, we’ll make our stand right here.

“If we put out all lights, we’ll have the attackers at a disadvantage.  We can account for fifty or more, before they close in.  And—­’Captain Alden,’ sir!  Where are you going?  Back, here!”

The woman gave no heed.  She was half-way to the entrance door, round the edges of which already torch-light had begun to glimmer as the attackers strained it from its hinges.

Amazed, the Legionaries stared.  The Master started after her.  Now she was on her knees beside one of the dead Maghrabis—­the one killed by Janina.  She found nothing; turned to the other; uttered a cry of exultation and held up a clumsy key.