CHAPTER XXIX
"LABBAYK!"
As Nissr slowed near the oasis, the frightened Arabs--who had beenat their _ghanda_, or mid-day meal--swarmed into the open. They lefttheir mutton, _cous-cous_, date-paste, and lentils, their chibouqueswith perfumed vapor and their keef-smoking, and manifested extremefear by outcries in shrill voices. Under the shadows of the palms,that stood like sentinels against the blistering sands, they gathered,with wild cries.
No fighting-men, these. The glasses disclosed that they were mostlyold men, women, children. Young men were few. The fighters hadprobably gone with the caravan, seen a while before. There came alittle ragged firing; but a round of blanks stopped that, and sent thevillagers skurrying back into the shelter of the palms, mimosas, andjamelon trees.
_Nissr_ poised at seven hundred and fifty feet and let down tanks,nacelle, and men. There was no resistance. The local _naib_ came withtrembling, to make salaam. Water was freely granted, from the _sebil_,or public fountain--an ancient tank with century-deep grooves cut inits solid stone rim by innumerable camel-hair ropes. The flying menput down a hose, threw the switch of the electric pump, and in a fewminutes half emptied the fountain. The astonishment of the villagerspassed all bounds.
"These be men of great magic," said the _naib_, to Rrisa, after thetanks had been hoisted to _Nissr_, and a dozen sacks of fresh dateshad been purchased for the trinkets plus two _ryals_ (about twodollars). "Tell me of these 'People of the Books!'"
"I will tell thee of but one thing, Abu Shawarib," (father ofwhiskers) answered Rrisa with pride. "Old Abd el Rahman is ourprisoner in the flying ship above. We are taking him back to Mecca.All his people of the Beni Harb lie dead far toward the great waters,on the edge of the desert of the sea. The Great Pearl Star we alsohave. That too returneth to the Haram. _Allah iselmak!_" (Thanks be toAllah!)
The _naib_ prostrated himself, with joyful cries, and touched lipsand forehead with quivering fingers. All others who heard thenews, did likewise. Fruits, pomegranate, syrup, honey, and _jild elfaras_[1] were brought as offerings of gratitude. The crew ascended tothe air-liner amid wild shouts of praise and jubilation.
[Footnote 1: Literally "mare's skin." Apricot paste in dried sheets,cut into convenient sizes. A great dainty among the Arabs.]
"You see, Leclair?" the Master inquired, as _Nissr_ drew away oncemore to eastward, leaving the village in the palms behind. "We holdpower already with the sons of Islam! What will it be when--?"
"When you attempt to take from them their all, instead of returning tothem what they so eagerly desire to have!" the Frenchman put in. "Letus hope all for the best, my Captain, but let us keep our powder verydry!"
Two days and one night of steady flying over the ocean of sand, withbut an occasional oasis or caravan to break the appalling wastes ofemptiness, brought _Nissr_ to the Valley of the Nile. The river ofhoar antiquity came to view in a quivering heat-haze, far to eastward.In anticipation of possible attack, _Nissr_ was forced to her bestaltitude, of now forty-seven hundred feet, all gun-stations weremanned and the engines were driven to their limit. The hour wasanxious; but the Legion passed the river in safety, just a littlesouth of the twentieth degree, near the Third Cataract. Bohannan'sgloomy forebodings proved groundless.
The Red Sea and Arabia were now close at hand. Tension increased.Rrisa thrilled with a malicious joy. He went to the door of thecaptive Sheik, and in flowery Arabic informed him the hour ofreckoning was at last drawing very near.
"Thou carrion!" he exclaimed. "Soon shalt thou be in the hands of theFaithful. Soon shall Allah make thy countenance cold, O offspring of aone-eyed man!"
Three hours after, the air-liner sighted a dim blue line that markedthe Red Sea. The Master pointed at this, with a strange smile.
"Once we pass that sea," he commented, "our goal is close. The hour ofgreat things is almost at hand!"
"Provided we get some petrol," put in Bohannan.
"Faith, an open gate, that should have been closed, defeated Napoleon.A few hundred gallons of gasoline--"
"The gasoline is already in sight, Major," smiled the chief, hisglasses on the coastline. "That caravan--see there?--comes veryapropos."
The Legion bore down with a rush on the caravan--a small one, notabove fifty camels, but well laden. The cameleers left off crying"_Ooosh! Ooosh!_" and beating their spitting beasts with their_mas'hab_-sticks, and incontinently took to their heels. Rrisa viewedthem with scorn, as he went down in the nacelle with a dozen of thecrew.
The work of stripping the caravan immediately commenced. In an hoursome five hundred tin cases of petrol had been hoisted aboard. Onthe last trip down, the Master sent a packet wrapped in white cloth,containing a fair money payment for the merchandise. British goods, hevery wisely calculated, could not be commandeered without recompenseThe packet was lashed to a camel-goad which was driven into the sand,and _Nissr_ once more got slowly under way.
All eyes were now on the barren chalk and sandstone coasts of the RedSea, beyond which dimly rose the castellated peaks of Jebel Radhwa.At an altitude of 2,150 feet the air-liner slid out over the Sea,the waters of which shone in the mid-afternoon sun with a peculiarluminosity. Only a few _sambuks_, or native craft, troubledthose historic depths; though, down in the direction of Bab elMandeb--familiar land to the Master--a smudge of smoke told of somesteamer beating up toward Suez.
Leaning from the upper port gallery, the Master with Bohannan,Leclair, and "Captain Alden," watched the shadow of the giantair-liner sliding over the tawny sand-bottom. That shadow seemed ascout going on before them, spying out the way to Arabia and to Mecca,the Forbidden City. To the white men that shadow was only a shadow.To Rrisa, who watched it from the lower gallery, it portended ominousevil.
"It goes ahead of us, by Allah!" he murmured. "Into the Empty Abodes,where the sons of Feringistan would penetrate, a shadow goes first!And that is not good." He whispered a prayer, then added: "For theothers, I care not. But my Master--his life and mine are bound withthe cords of Kismet. And in the shadows I see darkness for all!"
At 4:27, _Nissr_ passed the eastern shores of the Red Sea. Arabiaitself now lay beneath. There exposed to their eyes, at length lay theland of mystery and fear. Bare and rock-ribbed, a flayed skeleton ofa terrain, it glowed with wondrous yellow, crimson, and topaz hues.A haze bounded the south-eastern horizon, where a range of iron hillsjaggedly cut the sky. Mecca was almost at hand.
The Master entered his cabin and summoned Rrisa.
"Listen," he commanded. "We are now approaching the Holy City. I ambringing back the Apostate Sheik and the Great Pearl Star. I am thepreserver of the Star. Thine own people could not keep it. I haverecovered it. Is that not true?"
"True, _M'alme_, praise to Allah!"
"It may be that I shall be called on to preserve some other andstill more sacred thing. If so, remember that my salt is still in thystomach."
"Master, I will not forget." Rrisa spoke dutifully, but his eyeswere troubled. His face showed lines of fear, of the struggle alreadydeveloping in his soul.
"Go thou, then! And remember that whatever happens, my judgment tellsme it is best. Raise not a hand of rebellion against me, Rrisa, towhom thou owest life itself. To thy cabin--go!"
"But, Master--"
"_Ru'c'h halla!_"
The Arab salaamed and departed, with a strange look in his eyes.
When he was gone, the Master called Bohannan and Leclair, outlined thenext _coup_ in this strange campaign, and assigned crews to them forthe implacable carrying-out of the plan determined on--surely the mostdare-devil, ruthless, and astonishing plan ever conceived by the brainof a civilized man.
Hardly had these preparations been made, when the sound ofmusketry-fire, below and ahead, drew their attention. From the openports of the cabin, peering far down, the three Legionaries witnessedan extraordinary sight--a thing wholly incongruous in this hoar landof mystery and romance.
Skirting a line of low savage hills that ruggedly stretched fromnorth to south,
a gleaming line of metal threaded its way. A train,southbound for Mecca, had halted on the famous Pilgrims' Railway.From its windows and doors, white-clad figures were violentlygesticulating. Others were leaping from the train, swarming all aboutthe carriages.
An irregular fusillade, harmless as if from pop-guns, was beingdirected against the invading Eagle of the Sky. A faint, far outcryof passionate voices drifted upward in the heat and shimmer of thatArabian afternoon. The train seemed a veritable hornets' nest intowhich a rock had been heaved.
"Faith, but that's an odd sight," laughed the major. "Where elsein all this world could you get a contrast like that--the desert, asemibarbarous people, and a railroad?"
"Nowhere else," put in Leclair. "There is no other road like that,anywhere in existence. The Damascus-Mecca line is unique; a Moslemline built by Moslems, for Moslems only Modern mechanism blent withancient superstition and savage ferocity that implacably hold to thevery roots of ancient things!"
"It is the Orient, Lieutenant," added the Master. "And in the Orient,who can say that any one thing is stranger than anything else? To yourstations, men!"
They took their leave. The Master entered the pilot-house and assumedcontrol. As _Nissr_ passed over the extraordinary Hejaz Railway,indifferent to the mob of frenzied, vituperating pilgrims, the chiefpeered far ahead for his first sight of Mecca, the Forbidden.
He had not long to wait. On the horizon, the hills seemed suddenly tobreak away. As the air-liner roared onward, a dim plain appeared, withhere or there a green-blue blur of oasis and with a few faint whitespots that the Master knew were pilgrims' camping-places.
Down through this plain extended an irregular depression, a kind ofnarrow valley, with a few sharply isolated, steep hills on eitherhand.
The Master's eyes gleamed. His jaw set; his hand, on the controls,tightened till the knuckles whitened.
"The Valley of Mina!" he exclaimed. "Mount Arafat--and there, beyond,lies Mecca! _Labbayk! Labbayk!_"