No one answered.  They all stood peering down at him, their faces tense, wounded, dirty; their eyes gleaming strangely; the shadow of Azrael’s wing already enfolding them.  Then, a few detached themselves from the little group and wandered off into the gloom, away from the pits.  Leclair muttered: 

“I prefer loading my automatic, to loading my pockets!  Odd, the major is, eh?  Ah well, a chacun sa chimere!”

“Everybody’s weapons fully loaded?” the Master demanded.  “Be sure they are!  And don’t forget the mercy-bullets, men.  These Arabs are rather ingenious in their tortures.  They make a specialty of crucifying unbelievers—­upside down.  That sort of thing won’t do, for us not for fighting-men of the Legion!”

Bohannan, laughing, stood up.  Every pocket was a-bulge with incalculable wealth.

“Now I’m satisfied,” he remarked in more rational tones.  “I reckon I must be worth more money, as I stand here, than any human being that ever lived.  You’re looking at the richest man in the world, gentlemen!  And I’m going to die, the richest.  If that’s not some distinction, what is?  For a man that was bone-poor, fifteen minutes ago!  Now, sir—­”

A sudden cry interrupted him.  That cry came from “Captain Alden.”

“Here!  Look here!”

“What is it?” demanded the Master.  He started toward her, while outside the door sounded dull commands, as if the Arabs-now organized to effective work-were already preparing to blow open the last barrier between them and their victims.

“What now?” the Master repeated, striding toward her.

“See!  See here!”

CHAPTER XLVII

A WAY OUT?

The woman stood pointing into a black recess at the far end of the crypt.  All that the Master could discern there, at first, was a darkness even greater than that which shrouded the corners of the vault.

“Light, here!” he commanded.  Ferrara swung a lamp, by its chain, into the recess.  They saw a low, square opening in the wall of dull, gleaming metal.

“A passage, eh?” the Master ejaculated.

“Maybe a cul-de-sac,” she answered.  “But—­there’s no telling—­it may lead somewhere.”

“By Allah!  Men!  Here—­all of you!”

The Master’s voice rang imperatively.  They all came trooping with naked or slippered feet that slid in the wet redness of the floor.  Broken exclamations sounded.

Seizing the lamp, the Master thrust it into the opening, which measured no more than four feet high by three wide.  The light smokily illuminated about three yards of this narrow passage.  Then a sharp turn to the right concealed all else.

Whither this runway might lead, to what peril or what trap it might conduct them, none could tell.  Very strongly it reminded the Master of the gallery in the Great Pyramid of Gizeh, which he had seen twelve years before—­the gallery which in ancient days had served as a death-trap for treasure-seekers.