CHAPTER XXXVI
JOURNEY'S END
All this time, the strange, yellowish sheen against the heavens wasincreasing. What might lie beyond the mountains--who could tell? Butthat its nature was wholly different from anything any white man everhad beheld seemed obvious.
Quite suddenly, at 10:05, the Master's binoculars detected a break farto southward, in the craggy wall of rock. He ordered _Nissr's_ beakturned directly thither. Swiftly the Eagle of the Sky held her course,speeding like an arrow. And now a vast, open plain was seen to bespreading away, away to indeterminable distances; a plain the furtherlimits of which veiled themselves in bister and dull ocher vapors.
The aureate shimmer on the sky kept steadily increasing, from a pointsomewhat to the left of _Nissr's_ line of flight. What this might be,none could guess. None save the Master. More agitated than any hadever seen him, he stood there at the rail, lips tight, hands clutchingthe binoculars at his eyes.
"By Allah!" the major heard him mutter. "It can't be true--the thingI've heard. Only a fable, surely! And yet--"
Now the vast plain was coming clearly to view. It appeared fullyunder cultivation with patches of greenery that denoted gardens,palm-groves, fruit-orchards; all signs of a well-watered region hereat the center of the world's most appalling desert.
This in itself was a thing of astonishment. But it faded toinsignificance as all at once a far, dazzling sheen burst on thewatchers. Up against the sky a wondrous, yellow blaze seemed to beburning. Enormously far away as it still was, it filled the heartof every observer with a strange, quick thrill of wonder, of hope.Something of wild exultation seemed to leap through the Legionaries'veins, at sight of that strange fire.
Leclair glanced at the Master. The dark, taciturn man, for all hisself-control, had set teeth into his lip till the blood was all butstarting.
On, on swooped _Nissr._ Now the plain was widening. Now, off at theleft, behind the shimmer of the wondrous sight that seemed a fantasticcity of dreams, long black cliffs had become visible--surely some spurof the Iron Mountains, making to southward at the eastern edge of theplain. This line of crags faded, in remote distance, into the brownvapors that ringed the mystic horizon.
"The city?" asked Bohannan. "That--can't be the city, can it, now?Faith, if it _is_, we're too late. Damn me, sir, but the wholeinfernal place is on fire! Just our rotten luck, eh?"
The Master made no reply. As if he would devour the place with hiseyes, he was leaning over the rail, boring through those powerfulglasses at the dazzle and bright sheen of the wonder-city now everymoment becoming more clearly visible.
That it was in truth a city could no longer be doubted. Long wallscame to view, pierced by gates with fantastic arches. Domes rose toheaven. Delicate minarets, carved into a fretwork of amazing fineness,pointed their fingers at the yellow shimmering sky. The contrast ofthat brilliance, with the soft green gardens and feathery palm-grovesbefore, the grim black cliffs behind, filled the Legionaries with akind of silent awe.
But most wonderful of all was the metallic shimmer of those walls,domes, minarets, under the high sun of this lost Arabian paradise. Soamazing was the prospect that, as _Nissr_ hurled herself in overthe last ranges of the mountains and shot out across the open plainitself, only one man found words.
This man was Leclair. Close beside the Master, he said in Arabic:
"I too have heard, my Captain. I too know the story of the BaraJannati Shahr--but I have always thought it fable. Now, now--."
"Faith!" interrupted the major, with sudden excitement. He smote therail a blow with an agitated fist. "If that doesn't look like gold,I'm a--."
"Gold?" burst out the Master, unable longer to control himself. "Ofcourse it's gold! And we--are the first white men in all the world tolook on it--the Golden City of Jannati Shahr!"
Stupefaction overcame the Flying Legion. The sight of this perfectlyincredible city, which even yet--despite its obvious character--theycould not believe as reality, for a little while deprived all theobservers of coherent thought.
Like men in a daze, they stood watching the far-distant mass of walls,buildings, towers, battlements all agleam with the unmistakable sheenof pure metal. The human mind, confronted by such a phenomenon, failsto react, and for a while lies inert, stunned, prostrate.
"Gold?" stammered the major, and fell to gnawing his mustache, ashe stared at the incredible sight. "By God--gold? Sure, it can't be_that_!"
"It not only can be, but is!" the Master answered. "The old legend iscoming true, that's all. Have you no eyes in your head, Major? If thatshine isn't the shine of gold, what is it?"
"Yes, but the thing's impossible, sir!" cried Bohannan. "Why, manalive! If that's gold, the whole of Arabia would be here after it!There'd be caravans, miners, swarms of--"
"It's obvious you know nothing of Moslem severity or superstition,"the Master interrupted. "There is no Mohammedan beggar, even starving,who would touch a grain of that metal. Not even if it were given him.There's not one would carry an ounce away from the Iron Mountains.This whole region is under the ban of a most terrific _tabu_, thatloads unthinkable curses on any human being who removes a single atomof any metal from it!"
"Ah, that's it, eh?"
"Yes, that's very much it! And what is more, Major, no word of thisever gets out to the white races--or hardly any. Nothing more thanvague rumors that barely amount to fairy stories. Even though I forcedRrisa to tell me the location of this city, he wouldn't mention itsbeing gold, and I knew too much to ask him or try to make him. Why,he'd have been torn to bits before he'd have betrayed _that_ InnerSecret. So now you understand!"
"I see, I see," the major answered, mechanically. It was plain,however, that his mind had received a shock from which it had not yetfully recovered. He remained staring and blinking, first chewing athis mustache and then tugging it with blunt, trembling fingers. Nowand then he shook his head, like a man just waking from a dream andtrying to make himself realize that he is indeed awake.
The others, some to a greater degree, some to a less, shared themajor's perturbation. A daze, a numb stupefaction had fallen on them.The Master, however, soon recalled them to activity. Not much time nowremained before _Nissr_ must make her landing on the plain near theGolden City. None was to be wasted.
Vigorous orders set the Legionaries to work. The machine-guns wereloaded and fully manned; several pieces of apparatus that the Masterhad been perfecting in his cabin were brought into the lower gallery;everyone was commanded to smarten his personal appearance. Thepsychology of the Oriental was such, well the Master knew, that theimpression the Legion should make upon the people of this wonder-citycould not fail to be of the very highest importance.
The plain over which _Nissr_ was now sweeping, with the blackmountains left far behind, seemed a fairyland of beauty compared withthe desolation of the Central Arabian Desert.
"This is surely a fitting spot for the exact geometrical center ofIslam," the Master said to Leclair, as they stood looking down. "Mymeasurements show this secret valley to be that center. Mecca, ofcourse, has only been a blind, to keep the world from knowing anythingabout this, the true heart of the Faith. The Meccans have beenusurping the Black Stone, all these centuries, and these Jannati Shahrpeople have submitted because any conflict would have betrayed theirexistence to the world. That is my theory. Good, eh?"
"Excellent!" the lieutenant replied. "There must be millions ofMohammedans, themselves, who have hardly learned of this valley.Certainly, very few from the outside world ever have been able tocross the Empty Abodes, and reach it.
"These people here evidently represent a far higher culture thanany other Moslems ever known. Who ever saw a finer city--even notconsidering its material--or more wonderful cultivation of land?"
His eyes wandered out over the plain, which lost itself to sight inthe remote south. Roads in various directions, with here and therea few white dromedaries bearing bright-colored _shugdufs_ (litters),showed there was travel to some other inhabited spots
inside theforbidding mountain girdle.
Here, there, herds of antelope and flocks of sheep were grazing onbroad meadows, through which trickled sparkling threads of water,half glimpsed among feathery-tufted date-palms. Plantations of fig andpomegranate, lime, apricot, and orange trees, with other fruits notrecognized, slid beneath the giant liner as she slowed her pace. Andbroad fields of wheat, barley, tobacco, and sugar-cane showed that thepeople of the city had no fear of any lack.
Birds were here--pelicans, cranes, and water-fowl along the brooksand gleaming pools; swift little yellow birds with crownlike crests;doves, falcons, and hawks of unknown species. Here was life abundant,after the death of the Empty Abodes. Here was rich color; here arosea softly perfumed air, balmy, incensed as with strange aromatics. Herewas peace--eternal _kayf_--blessed rest--here indeed lay a scene thatgave full explanation of the ancient name "Arabia Felix."
And at the left, dominating all this beauty, shone and glimmered inthe ardent sun the wondrous Golden City of Jannati Shahr.
_Nissr_ had already begun to slant to lower levels. Now at no morethan twenty-five hundred feet, with greatly reduced speed, she wasdrifting down the valley toward the city, the details of whichwere every moment becoming more apparent. Its size, the wonderingLegionaries saw, must be very considerable; it might have containedthree or four hundred thousand inhabitants. Its frontage along theblack mountains could not have been less than two and a half miles;and, as it seemed to lose itself up a defile in those crags, no way atpresent existed of judging its depth.
The general appearance was that of stern simplicity. A long wallof gleaming yellow bounded it, from north to south; this wall beingpierced by seven gates, each flanked by minarets. Behind the wall,terraces arose, with _mesjid_ (temple) domes, innumerable houses, andsome larger buildings of unknown purpose.
The powerful glasses on _Nissr_ showed fretwork carving everywhere;but the main outlines of the city, none the less, gave an impressionof almost primitive severity. No touch of modernity affected it.Everything appeared immensely archaic.
"The Jerusalem of Solomon's day," thought the Master, "must havelooked like that--barring only that this is solid gold."
Out from the city, a little less than two-thirds of the way down,issued a rather considerable stream. It seemed to come from under thewall fronting the plain. Its course, straight rather than sinuous,lay toward the south-west, and was marked by long lines of giantdate-palms and pale-stemmed eucalyptus trees, till it lost itself inbrown distances.
"Faith, but that looks like lotus-eating, all right," said the major,notching up his cartridge-belt another hole. "That looks like 'A bookof verses underneath the bough,' with Fatima or Lalla Rookh, or thelike, eh?" He drew at a cigarette, and smiled with sweet visionings ofCeltic exuberance. "A golden city! Lord!"
"You'll do no dallying 'with Amaryllis in the shade,' in _this_valley!" the Master flung at him. "Nor any lotus-eating, either. Toyour stations, men! Wake up! Forget all about this gold, now--remembermy orders! That's all you've got to do. The gold will take care ofitself, later. For now, there's stern work ahead!"
The Legionaries assumed their posts, ready for whatever attack mightcome. They still moved like men in a trance. Whether they could quiteeven realize the true character of Jannati Shahr seemed doubtful. TheInca's room of gold stunned Pizarro and his men. How much more, then,must a whole city of gold numb any concrete thought?
Down, still down sank _Nissr_, now beginning to circle in broad,descending spirals, seeking where she might land. The roar of thepropellers lessened; and at the same time, the increasing hum of thehelicopters made itself heard, counterbalancing the loss of liftingpower of the planes, yet gradually letting the air-liner sink. Came,too, a sighing hiss of the air-intakes as the vacuum-floats filled.
High noon was now at hand. The sun burned, a copper ball, in the veryforehead of a turquoise sky. A light breeze, lazying over the plain,stirred the fronded tufts of the date-palms' thick plantations.Beyond a massy grove, stretching for nearly two miles out fromthe northernmost gate of the city, a grassy level quite like aparade-ground invited the liner to rest.
As she sank still lower, the Master's glass again picked up the citywall and ran along it. Here, there, white dots were visible; humanfigures, surely--the figures of men in snowy burnouses, on theramparts of heavy metal.
The Master smiled, and nodded.
"My men think they are surprised," he mused. "What will these JannatiShahr men think, when I have opened my little box of tricks and shownthem what's inside?"
He pressed a button on the rail. A bell trilled in the pilot-house;another in the engine-room. The Norcross-Brails died to inactivity.
With a last long swoop, an abandonment of all the furious energiesthat for so long had been hurling her over burning sand and blackcrag, _Nissr_ slanted to the grassy sward. A sudden, furious hissingburst out beneath her, as the compressed-air valves were thrown andthe air-cushions formed beneath her thousands of spiracles. Then, withhardly a shudder, easily as a tired gull slips down into the quiet ofa still lagoon, the vast air-liner took earth.
She slid two hundred yards on her air-cushions, over the close-croppedturf, slowed, came to rest there fronting the northern gate of BaraJannati Shahr. And the shimmer of those golden walls, one mile to eastof her, painted her all a strangely luminous yellow.
Journey's end, at last!