“Nice place to tackle, if anybody were left to defend it!” commented Bohannan.  None of the others answered.  The Master started diagonally across the cleared space, toward a cluster of little buildings and stout gate-posts.

Hardly had they emerged from the woods, when, all up and down the line, till it was broken by the woods at both ends where the stockade joined its eastern and western wall, other men began appearing.  And all, alike, converged toward the gate.

But to these, the little party of four gave no heed.  Other men absorbed their interest—­sleeping men, now more and more thickly scattered all along the stockade.  Save for a slight, saline tang to the air—­an odor by no means unpleasant—­nothing remained of the lethal gas.

But its victims still lay there, prone, in every possible attitude of complete and overpowering abandonment.  And all, as the party of four passed, were quickly disarmed.  Up and down the open space, other Legionaries were at the same work.

The Master and his companions reached the gate-house first of any in the party.  The gate was massive, of stout oaken planks heavily strapped with iron.  About it, and the gate-house, a good many guards were lying.  All showed evidence of having dropped asleep with irresistible suddenness.

Some were gaping, others foolishly grinning as if their last sensation had been agreeable—­as indeed it had been—­while others stared disconcertingly.  The chin of one showed an ugly burn where his Turkish cigarette had sagged, and had smoldered to extinction on the flesh.

One had a watch in his hand, while another gripped a newspaper.  In the gate-house, two had fallen face downward on the table that occupied the center of the rough room; checker-pieces lay scattered from the game they had been playing.  Several men sprawled just outside the little house, on the platform.  Under the incandescents, the effect grew weird.

Bohannan shuddered, as he glanced from one to another, then up at some of the approaching men of the expedition.  Rrisa affirmed that Mohammed was indeed the prophet of Allah, and that the ways of the Nasara were most strange.

“Good!” exclaimed the Master, with his first word of approval.  Even his aplomb was a little shaken by the complete success of the attack.  “It’s all working like a clock.”

“How about disarming these men, sir?” queried Captain Alden.

“No.  They fall under the orders of another group.”

“The way is clear, then—­”

“Absolutely!  These men will sleep almost precisely thirty minutes.  The way is clear ahead of us.  Forward into the Palisade!”

CHAPTER VII

THE NEST OF THE GREAT BIRD

As the little group of four penetrated into the enclosure which but a few moments before had been guarded all round its perimeter by a small army of determined men, more and more of the Legionaries began to concentrate toward the entrance.