That gallery, he remembered, had contained a cleverly hidden stone in its floor which once on a time had precipitated pilferers down a vertical shaft more than a hundred feet, to death, in the bowels of that huge, terrifying mausoleum.

Was this passage of similar purpose and design?  In all probability, yes.  Oriental ways run parallel in all the lands of the East.

Nevertheless, the passage offered a means of escaping from the crypt.  And there, with the dead Maghrabi mudirs, the Legionaries could not stay.  In a few minutes now, at most, the men of Jannati Shahr would be upon them.

“Faith, what the devil now?” exclaimed Bohannan, now seeming quite rational, as he peered into the cramped corridor.  “Where to Hell does this lead?”

“Just where you’ve said, to Hell, it’s far more than likely,” the Master retorted.  “Come, men, into it!  Follow me!”

He stooped, lamp in one hand, simitar in the other, and in a most cramped posture entered the passage.  After him came Leclair, the woman, Bohannan, and the others.

The air hung close and heavy.  The oppression of that stooping position, the lamp-smoke, the unusual strain on the muscles, the realization of a whole world of gold above and all about them, seemed to strangle and enervate them.  But steadily they kept on and on.

The turning of the passage revealed a long, descending incline, that sloped down at an angle of perhaps thirty degrees.  A marked rise in temperature grew noticeable.  What might that mean?  None could imagine, but not one even thought of turning back.

The walls and floor in this straight, descending passage were now no longer smooth, arabesqued, polished.  To the contrary, they showed a rough surface, on which the marks of the chisel could be plainly seen as it had shorn away the yielding metal in great gouges.  Moreover, streaks of black granite now began to appear; and these, as the Legionaries advanced, became ever wider until at last the stone predominated.

The Master understood they were now coming to the bottom of part of the golden dyke.  Undeviated by the hard rock, the tunnel continued to descend, with here and there a turn.  Narrowly the Master scrutinized the floor, tapping it with the simitar as he crept onward, seeking indications of any possible trap that might hurl him into bottomless, black depths.

Quite at once, a right-angled turning opened into a small chamber not above eight feet high by fifteen square.  In this, silent, listening, the sweating fugitives gathered.

The temperature was here oppressive, and the lamps burned blue with some kind of gas that stifled the lungs.  Gas and smoke together, made breathing hard.  A dull, roaring sound had begun to make itself vaguely audible, the past few minutes; and as the Legionaries stood listening, this was now rather plain to their ears.

“This is a devil of a place for a multi-millionaire, I must say!” Bohannan exploded.  Simonds laughed, with tense nerves.  One or two others swore, bitterly cursing the men of El Barr.