“Sure, and I’ve knocked up and down this rotten old world all my life, a rolling stone with never enough to bless myself with.  And I’ve gone, at the end, on this wild-goose chase of yours, that’s led you and me and all of us to a black death here in the bottom of a damned, fantastic, Arabian city of gold!

“That’s all right, dying.  That was in the bargain, if it had to be done.  Two-thirds of us are dead, already, a damn sight better men than I am!  We’ve been dying right along, from the beginning of this crack-brained Don Quixote crusade.  That’s all right.  But, faith! now that it’s my turn to die, by the holy saints I’m going to be well paid for it!”

Bohannan, eyes wild, struck his heaving breast with a huge fist and laughed like a maniac.

“That’s all right, you reaching for your gun!” he defied the Master.  “Go ahead, shoot!  I’m rich already.  My pockets are half full.  Shoot, damn you, shoot!”

The Master laughed oddly, and let his hand fall from the pistol-butt.

“This,” said he quite calmly, “is insanity.”

“Ha!  Insanity, it is?  Well then, let me be insane, can’t you?  It’s a good way to die.  And I’ve lived, anyhow.  We’ve all lived.  We’ve all had a Hell of a run for our money, and it’s time to quit.

“Shoot, if you want to—­a few minutes more or less don’t matter.  But, faith, I’ll die a millionaire, and that’s something I never expected to be.  Fine, fine!  Give me a minute more, and I’ll die a multi-millionaire!  Sure, imagine that, will you?  Major Aloysius Bohannan, gentleman-adventurer, a multi-millionaire!  That’s what I’ll be, and the man don’t live that can stop me now!”

With the laugh of a madman, the major fell to his knees again beside the pit, plunged his hands once more into the gleaming, sliding mass of wealth, and recommenced cramming his pockets.

The Master laughed again.

“It’s quite immaterial, after all,” said he.  “I led you into this.  And now it’s very nearly a case of sauve qui peut.  The sooner your pockets are full, to the extreme limit, the sooner something like reason will return to you.  Jewels being of interest to a man at death’s door—­it’s quite characteristic of you, Bohannan.  Help yourself!”

“Thanks, I will!” Bohannan flung up at him, blood-drabbled face pale and drawn by the flaring lamplight.  “A multi-millionaire!  Death?  I should worry!  Help myself?  Faith, I just will, that!”

“Anyone else, here, feel so disposed?” the Master inquired.  “If so, get it over and done with.  We’ve got fighting ahead, and we’d better quench whatever thirst there is for wealth, first.”

No one made any move.  Only Bohannan’s mind had been unsettled by the hoard, to the extent of wanting to possess it.  Now that death loomed, empty pockets were as good, to all the rest, as any other sort.

“You’re all a pack of damned fools!” Bohannan sneered.  “You could die richer than Rockefeller, every man-jack of you, and you—­you don’t want to!  Sure, it’s you that’s mad, not me!”