CHAPTER XXXIV
THE INNER SECRET OF ISLAM
The chief handed him a pencil. Rrisa intelligently studied the map fornearly two minutes, then raised his hand and made a dot a few milesnorth-east of the intersection of fifty degrees east and twentydegrees north. The Master's eye was not slow to note that thedesignated location formed one point of a perfect equilateraltriangle, the other points of which were Bab el Mandeb on the southand Mecca on the north.
"There, _M'alme_," whispered the Arab, in a choking voice. "Now Ihave told you the secret of all secrets, and have lost my soul. I haverevealed the inner mystery of Islam, that to this day no man of theFeringi hath ever known. I am a very great man of sin, and should havefirst torn out my tongue.
"But my life is in your hands, Master, and I have shared your salt.Allah knows I was forced to speak. _Shal'lah!_ (It is _Allah's_will!) Allah will weigh my heart and will forgive, for he is theCompassionate, the Merciful! I beg you, Master, now let me go!"
"Soon, Rrisa," the chief answered, turning away from the map. "Butfirst there is something of highest import I must show thee."
"And what may that be, my sheik?" the Arab queried, his widening eyesfixed on the blanket that covered the loot from Mecca. Instinctivelyhe sensed that some horrible sight was about to be presented to him.His face paled even more. He licked dry lips with a tongue equallydry, and leaned against the table to steady himself. "What have younow to show me, O _M'alme?_"
"Listen!" the chief commanded sternly. "The Meccans are a peoplecorrupt and accursed. 'Their hearts are black as their skins arewhite.' They live by fleecing the _Hujjaj_, by making sale and barterof relics, by turning the holy places into marts of trade. All this iswell known throughout Islam. Ah, the degenerate breed of the sons ofthe Prophet!"
"That is true, Master. And what then?"
"Is it not a fact that they could not even safeguard the Kaukab elDurri from the hand of the Great Apostate Sheik? How much less, then,could they protect their other and more sacred things, if some Shiahdog should come to rob them of the things they value?
"Would it not be better that such things should be carried far fromdanger, to the hidden, inner city? I ask thee this, Rrisa; would itnot be better far?"
"And what is the meaning of my master's strange words?" venturedRrisa, a sort of dazed horror dawning in his eyes. "The other and moresacred things of Islam--are they there under that cloth, O Master?"
"Thou hast said it, Rrisa! Now, behold them!"
With a quick, dramatic gesture, well-calculated to strike at the rootsof the superstitious Arab's nature, he flung away the blanket. ToRrisa's horrified gaze appeared the Myzab and the sacred Black Stone.
"_Ya Allah!_" gulped the orderly, in a choking whisper. His facebecame a dull gray. His eyes, rimmed with white, stared in terror. Histeeth began to chatter; and on his forehead appeared little glisteningdrops.
"O Master, that is not--."
"Truly, yea! The Golden Waterspout, Rrisa, and the Black Stoneitself! I am carrying them to the Very Heavenly City, far in the IronMountains! They shall be given to the Great Olema, there, who is morefit to guard and keep them than the Sheriff of Mecca or than his sonsFeisal and the two Alis. No harm shall befall them, and--"
"And your hand--the hands of other Feringi who are not mymasters--have touched these things?" stammered Rrisa. "O my calamity!O my grief!"
"Thou canst go now, Rrisa," the Master said. "Go, and think well ofwhat I have told thee, and--"
But Rrisa, falling prone to the metal of the cabin floor, facing theBlack Stone, gave vent to his feelings and burst into a wild cry of"_La Illaha_--" and the rest of the immemorial formula.
The Master smiled down at him, quizzical and amused yet still morethan a little affected by the terror and devotion of his orderly.Wise, he waited till Rrisa had made the compulsory prayers of_Labbayk, Takbir_, and _Tahiti_, as all Moslems must do when comingnear the Black Stone. Then, as the orderly's voice suddenly died away,he bent and laid a hand on the quivering Arab's shoulder.
"Come, come, Rrisa," said he, not unkindly. "Be thou not sodistressed. Is it not better that these very precious things be keptin greater safety at the Jannati Shahr? Come, Rrisa! Arise!"
The orderly made no move, uttered no sound. The Master dragged himup, held him, peered into his face that had gone quite ashen under itsbrown.
"Why, Lord! the man has fainted dead away!" exclaimed the Master. Hegathered Rrisa in his powerful arms, carried him to his own cabin andlaid him in the berth, there; then he bathed his face with water andchafed his hands and throat.
In a few minutes, Rrisa's eyes vaguely opened. He gulped, gasped, madeshift to speak a few feeble words.
"Master!" he whispered.
"Well, what dost thou wish?"
"One favor, only!"
"And what is that?"
"Leave me, a little while. I must be alone, all alone with Allah--tothink!"
The Master nodded.
"It shall be as thou wishest," said he. "Think, yes. And understandthat what I do is best for all of Sunnite Islam! As for the Shiahdogs, what hast thou to trouble about them?"
Saying no more, he withdrew to his own cabin, wrapped the Myzab andthe Stone in the blanket and laid them carefully under his berth.Opening his desk-drawer, he assured himself the Pearl Star was stillthere. This done, he turned again to the map, carefully studiedthe location of the point Rrisa had designated, and--going to thepilot-house--gave directions for a new course to "Captain Alden," nowat the wheel.
This course, he calculated by allowing for wind and lateraldrift, would carry _Nissr_ directly toward the site of the stillhalf-mythical Iron Mountains and the Bara Jannati Shahr.
He now returned to his cabin, locked himself in and--pondering overa few khat leaves--passed the remainder of the afternoon sunk in deepabstraction.
Evening and night still found him in profound thought, while the giantair-liner steadily rushed into the south-east, bearing him and theLegion onward toward dim regions now veiled in purple darkness understrange stars.
At nine o'clock he ordered _Nissr_ stopped, and had the body of Dr.Lombardo sent down with six men in the nacelle, for burial. No purposecould be served by keeping the body, and all unnecessary complicationshad to be dispensed with before the morrow. Lombardo, who had fullyatoned for his fault by having given his life in the service of thenow depleted Legion, was buried in his service-uniform, in a fairlydeep grave on which the Legionaries heaped a great tumulus of sand.The only witnesses were the Arabian Desert stars; the only requiemthe droning of the helicopters far above, where _Nissr_ hung with hergleaming lights like other, nearer stars in the dense black sky.
By ten o'clock, the air-liner had resumed her course, leaving stillanother brave man to his last sleep, alone. The routine of travelsettled down again on the ship and its crew of adventurers.
At half-past eleven, the Master issued from his cabin. All alone, andspeaking with no man, he took a quarter-hour constitutional up anddown the narrow gallery along the side of the fuselage--the galleryon which his cabin window opened. His face, by the vague light of theglows in this gallery, looked pale and worn; but a certain gleam oftriumph and proud joy was visible in his dark eyes.
All about him, stretched night unbroken. Far behind, lay vastconfusions involving hundreds of millions of human beings violentlywrenched from their accustomed routines of faith and prayer, withpotential effects beyond all calculation. Ahead lay--what?
"It may be glory and power, wealth past reckoning, incrediblesplendor," thought the Master, "and it may be ignominy, torture,death. 'Allah knows best and time will show.' But whatever it maybe--is it completion? The human heart, alone--can that ever becomplete in this world?"
He bent at the rail, gazing far out into the vague emptiness throughwhich the air-liner was pushing.
"Come what may," he murmured, "for tonight, at any rate, it is peace.'It is peace, till the rising of the dawn!'"
In a strange mood, still holding
no converse with any man, he returnedto the main corridor and went toward his cabin. His way led past thedoor of "Captain Alden." There he paused a moment, all alone in thecorridor. The lights in the ceiling showed a strange look in his eyes.His face softened, as he laid a hand on the metal panels of the door,silently almost caressingly.
To himself he whispered:
"I wonder who she really is? What can her name be--who can she be,and--and--"
He checked himself, impatiently:
"What thoughts are these? What nonsense? Such things are not for me!"
Silently he returned to his cabin, undressed, switched off the lightand turned into his berth, under which lay the incalculable treasuresof Islam. For a long time he lay there, thinking, wondering, angrywith himself for having seemed to give way for a single moment tosofter thoughts than those of conquest and adventure.
Gradually the cradling swing, the quivering power of the airship,lulled his fevered spirit. Sleep won upon him, dulled the excitementsof the past twenty-four hours, sank him into oblivion. His deep,regular breathing sounded in the gloom of the cabin that containedthe Great Pearl Star, the Myzab, the sacred Black Stone of infiniteveneration.
An hour he slept. On, on roared _Nissr_, swaying, rising, fallinga little as she hurled herself through the Arabian night towardthe unknown Bara Jannati Shahr, hidden behind the Iron Mountains ofmystery as yet unseen by any unbelieving eye.
Peace, all seemed peace, for one dark hour.
But as the hour ended, a shadow fell along the narrow gallery outsidethe cabin window. A silent shadow it was, that crept, paused, came onagain. And now in the dark, had there been any eye to see, the shadowwould have been identified as a barefoot man, lithe, alert, movingsilently forward with the soundless stealth of an Arab versed in theart of _asar_, or man-stalking.
To the Master's window this shadow crept, a half-invisible thing inthe gloom. It paused there, listening to the deep, regular breathingwithin. Then a lean, brown hand was laid on the sill. It still seemedto hesitate.
Something gleamed vaguely in that hand--a crooked _jambiyeh_,needle-sharp at the point, keen-edged and balanced for the stroke thatsilently slays.
Motionless, unbreathing even, the shadow waited a long minute. Thenall at once over the sill it writhed, quick, lithe as a starvedpanther.
Dagger in hand, the shadow slid to the berth where lay the Master ofthe Legionaries. There Rrisa paused, listening to the slow respirationof the White Sheik with whom he had shared the inviolable salt, towhom he owed life itself.
Up, in the gloom, came the dagger-blade.
Over the unconscious Master it poised, keen, cold, avenging in thedark of the cabin where lay the three supreme treasures of all Islam.