CHAPTER XLIII
WAR IN THE DEPTHS
Horrible, unreal as a fever-born nightmare in its sudden frenzy, theArab's attack drove in at them. The golden passageway flung from wallto wall screams, curses in shrill barbaric voices, clangor of steelwhirled from scabbards, echoes of shots loud-roaring in that narrowspace.
Bara Miyan's pistol, struck up by the woman's hand, spat fire over theMaster's head just as the Olema himself went down with blood spurtingfrom a jugular severed by the major's bullet. The Olema's gaudyburnous crimsoned swiftly.
"Got _him_!" shouted Bohannan, firing again, again, into the tangle ofsub-chiefs and Maghrabi men. Adams pitched forward, cleft to the chinby a simitar.
The firing leaped to point-blank uproar, on both sides. The men ofJannati Shahr numbered more pistols, but the Legionaries had quickerfirers. Arabs, Legionaries, Maghrabis alike falling in a tumult of rawpassions, disappeared under trampling feet.
Deafening grew the uproar of howls, curses, shots. The smell of dustand blood mingled with the aromatic perfume of the cressets.
The Master was shouting something, as he emptied his automatic intothe pack of white-robed bodies, snarling brown faces, waving arms. Butwhat he was commanding, who could tell?
Like a storm-wave flinging froth ashore, the rush of the Moslemsdrove the Legionaries--fewer now--back into the treasure-chamber. TheMaster, violent hands on "Captain Alden," swung her back, away; thrusther behind him. Her eyes gleamed through the mask as she still fired.The Master heard her laugh.
From dimness of gloom, within the doorway, two vague figures raineddagger-blows. Janina, mortally stabbed, practically blew the head offone of these door-keepers.
Cracowicz got the other with a blow from the butt of his emptypistol--a blow that crushed in the right temporal bone. Then he, too,and three others, fell and died.
Outside, in the passage, the Maghrabis were wringing the necks of thewounded white men. The dull sound of crushed and broken bones blentwith the turmoil.
"_The door--shut the door!_"
The Master's voice penetrated even this Hell-tumult. The Master flunghimself against the door, and others with him.
The very frenzy of the attack defeated the Arab's object, for it drovethe survivors back into the treasure-crypt. And in the narrow doorwaythe white men could for a moment hold back the howling tides of fury.
With cold lead, butts, naked fists, the remaining Legionaries smasheda little clearance-room, corpse-heaped. They stumbled, fought, fellinto the crypt.
The heavy door, swung by panting, sweating men--while others firedthrough the narrowing aperture--groaned shut on massive hinges.
As the space narrowed, frenzy broke loose. Arabs and Maghrabis crawledand struggled over bodies, flung themselves to sure immolation in thedoorway. As fast as they fell, the Legionaries dragged them inside.The place became an infernal shambles, slippery, crimson, unreal withhorror.
For one fate-heavy moment, the tides of war hung even. Furiously theremaining Legionaries toiled with straining muscles, swelling veins,panting lungs, to force the door shut, against the shrieking, frenzieddrive of Moslem fanatics lashed into fury by the _thar_, the feud ofblood.
"Captain Alden" turned the tide. She snatched down one of the copperlamps that hung by chains from the dim ceiling of the treasure-crypt.Over the heads of the Legionaries she flung blazing sandal-oil outupon the white-robed jam of madmen.
The flaming oil flared up along those thin, white robes. It dripped onwounded and on dead. Wild howls of anguish pierced the tumult. In theminute of confusion, the door boomed shut. Bohannan dropped a heavyteakwood bar into staples of bronze.
"God!" he panted, his right eye misted with blood from a jagged cuton the brow. Shrieks of rage, from without, were answered by jeers andshouts of exultation from the Legionaries.
"_Nom de Dieu!_" gasped Leclair. His neck was blackened with apowder burn, and the tunic was ripped clean off him. Not one of theLegionaries had uniforms completely whole. Hardly half of them stillkept their slippers.
Torn, barefooted, burned, bleeding, decimated, they still laughed.Wild gibes penetrated the door of the treasure-crypt, against whichthe mad attack was already beginning to clash and thunder.
"Faith, but this is a grand fight!" the major exulted. "It'sDonnybrook with trimmings!" He waved his big fists enthusiastically onhigh, and blinked his one good eye. "If a man can die this way, sure,what's the use o' living?"
"Steady men! Steady!" the Master cautioned, reloading his gun. "Notime, now, for shouting. Load up! This fight's only begun!"
Already, as they recharged their weapons, the door was groaning underthe frantic attack of the Arabs and Maghrabis. Wild curses, howls toAllah and to the Prophet, came in dull confusion through the massiveplates. A hail of blows besieged them. The bronze staples began tobend.
"Come, men!" commanded the Master. "No chance to defend this position.They'll be in, directly. There are thousands of them in reserve! Awayfrom here!"
"Where the devil _to_?" demanded the major, defiantly. "Hang toit--give 'em blue Hell as they come through!"
The Master seized and flung him back.
"If you're so keen on dying," he cried, "you can die right now, forinsubordination! Back, away from here, you idiot!"
The major obeyed. The others followed. Already the door wascreaking, giving, as the Legionaries--now hardly more than a dozen innumber--began the first steps of their retreat, that should rank inhistory with that of Xenophon's historic Ten Thousand.
The Greeks had all of God's outdoors for their maneuvers. TheseLegionaries had nothing but dark pits and runways, unexplored, in thebowels of a huge, fanatic city. Thus, their retreat was harder. Butwith courage unshaken, they turned their backs on the yielding door,and set their faces toward darkness and the unknown.
Two of their number lay dead inside this chamber where the Legionariesnow were. Nothing could be done for them; the bodies simply had to beabandoned where they lay. Eight were dead in the passage outside thechamber, their corpses mingled with those of Arabs and Maghrabis.
In the chamber, as the Master glanced back, he could see a heap ofbodies round the door. These bodies of attackers who had been pulledinside and butchered, made a glad sight to the Master. He laughedgrimly.
"We're more than even with them, so far," he exulted. "We've beatenthem, so far! The rest will get us, all right enough, but JannatiShahr will remember the coming of the white men!"
The survivors--the Master, Bohannan, "Captain Alden," and Leclair andnine others--were in evil case, as they trailed down the low-roofedchamber lighted with copper lamps. More than half bore wounds.Some showed bleeding faces, others limp arms; still others hobbledpainfully, leaving bloody trails on the floor of dull gold. Curses onthe Arabs echoed in various tongues. This first encounter had takenfrightful toll of the Legion.
But every heart that still lived was bold and high. Not one of thelittle party entertained the slightest hope of surviving or of everbeholding the light of day. Still, not one uttered any word of despairor suggestion of surrender.
Everything but a fight to the finish was forgotten. Only one man eventhought of _Nissr_ and of what probably had happened out there on theplain. This man was Leclair.
"_Dieu_!" he grunted. "An accident, eh? Something must have gonewrong--or did the brown devils attack? I hope our men outsidemade good slaughter of these Moslem pigs, before they died. Eh, myCaptain?"
"Well?"
"Is it not possible that _Nissr_ and our men still live? That theywill presently bombard the city? That they may rescue us?"
The Master shook his head.
"They may live," he answered, "but as for rescuing us--" His gesturecompleted the idea. Suddenly he pointed.
"See!" he cried. "Another door!"