The Flying Legion Part 50

Without ado, the lean, wild man of the Sahara was led, in wrinkled burnous, with disheveled hair, wild eyes, and an expression of helpless despair, to where the Master stood. At sight of the ma.s.sed hors.e.m.e.n, the gra.s.sy plain--a sight never yet beheld by him--and the distant golden, glimmering walls, a look of desperation flashed into his triple-scarred face.

The whole experience of the past days had been a Jehannum of incomprehensible terrors. Now that the climax was at hand, strength nearly deserted him even to stand. But the proud Arab blood in him flared up again as he was thrust forward, confronting Bara Miyan. His head snapped up, his eyes glittered like a caged eagle's, the fine, high nostrils dilated; and there he stood, captive but unbeaten, proud even in this hour of death.

Bara Miyan made no great speaking. All he asked was:

"Art thou, indeed, that Shaytan called Abd el Rahman, the Reviler?"

The desert Sheik nodded with arrogant admission.

Bara Miyan turned and clapped his hands. Out from among the hors.e.m.e.n two gigantic black fellows advanced. Neither one was Arab, though no doubt they spoke the tongue. Their features were Negroid, of an East African type.

The dress they wore distinguished them from all the others. They had neither _tarboosh_ nor burnous, but simply red fezes; tight sleeveless s.h.i.+rts of striped stuff, and trousers of Turkish cut. Their feet were bare.

Strange enough figures they made, black as coal, muscled like Hercules, and towering well toward seven feet, with arms and hands in which the sinews stood out like living welts. Their faces expressed neither intelligence nor much ferocity. Submission to Bara Miyan's will marked their whole att.i.tude.

"Sa'ad," commanded Bara Miyan, "seest thou this dog?"

"Master, I see," answered one of the gigantic blacks, speaking with a strange, thick accent.

"Lead him away, thou and Musa. He was brought us by these _zawwar_ (visitors). Thy hands and Musa's are strong. Remember, no drop of blood must be shed in El Barr.[1] But let not the dog see another sun.

I have spoken."

[Footnote 1: Literally "The Plain." This name, no doubt, originally applied only to the vast inner s.p.a.ce surrounded by the Iron Mountains, seems to have come to be that of Jannati Shahr itself, when spoken of by its inhabitants. El Barr is probably the secret name that Rrisa would not divulge.]

The gigantic executioner--the strangler--named Sa'ad, seized Abd el Rahman by the right arm. Musa, his tar-hued companion, gripped him by the left. Never a word uttered the Apostate as he was led away through the hors.e.m.e.n. But he gave one backward look, piercing and strange, at the Master who had thus delivered him to death--a look that, for all the White Sheik's aplomb, strangely oppressed him.

Then the hors.e.m.e.n closed about the two Maghrabi, or East Africans, and about their victim. Abd el Rahman, the Great Apostate, as a living man, had forever pa.s.sed from the sight of the Flying Legion.

His departure, in so abrupt and deadly simple a manner, gave the Master some highly conflicting thoughts. The fact that no blood was ever to be shed in this city had rea.s.suring aspects. On the other hand, how many of these Maghrabi stranglers did Bara Miyan keep as a standing army? A Praetorian guard of men with gorilla-hands like the two already seen might, in a close corner, prove more formidable than men armed with the archaic firearms of the place or with cold steel.

A sensation of considerable uneasiness crept over the Master as he pondered the huge strength and docility of these two executioners.

It was only by reflecting that the renegade Sheik would gladly have murdered the whole Legion, and that now (by a kind of poetic justice) he had been delivered back into the hands of the Sunnites he had so long defied and outraged, that the Master could smooth his conscience for having done this thing.

The direct, efficient way, however, in which Bara Miyan dealt with one held as an enemy, urged the Master to press forward the ceremony of giving and taking salt.

At all hazards, safeguards against attack must be taken. Once more the Master addressed Bara Miyan:

"_Effendi_! Our gifts are great to thee and thine. Great, also, is our magic. Let thine _imams_ do their magic, and we ours. If the magic of El Barr exceeds ours, we will depart without exchange of gifts. If ours exceeds thine, then let the salt be in our stomachs, all for all, and let the gifts be exchanged!

"Thy magic against our magic! Say, O Sheik, dost thou dare accept that challenge?"

The old man's head came up sharply. His eyes gleamed with intense pride and confidence.

"The magic of the unbelievers against that of the People of the Garment!" (Moslems!) cried he. "_Bismillah_! To the testing of the magic!"

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

ON, TO THE GOLDEN CITY!

The Spartan simplicity of the proceedings impressed the Master far more than any Oriental ceremony could have done. Here was the Olema, or high priest and chief, of a huge city carved of virgin gold, coming to meet him on horseback and speaking to him face to face, like a man.

It was archaic, patriarchal, dramatic in the extreme. No incensed courts, ma.s.sed audiences, tapestried walls, trumpeting heralds, genuflexions, could have conveyed half the sense of free, virile power that this old Bara Miyan gave as he stood there on the close turf, under the ardent sun, and with a wave of his slim hand gave the order:

"The magic! To the testing of the magic!"

Thoroughly well pleased with progress thus far, the Master turned back to give final instructions to his men and to examine the apparatus.

This was in perfect condition, all grouped with controls centered in one switchboard and focussing-apparatus so that Brodeur, in charge, could instantly execute any command.

Bara Miyan, clapping his hands again, summoned three hors.e.m.e.n who dismounted and came to him. By the emerald color of their head-fillets and jackets, as well as by their tonsure, the Master recognized them as mystics of the cla.s.s known as _Sufis._

That he was about to face a redoubtable test could not be doubted.

Long experience with Orientals had taught him the profundity of their legerdemain, practically none of which ever has been fathomed by white men. The Master realized that all his powers might be tried to the utmost to match and overcome the demonstration of the Jannati Shahr folk.

While Bara Miyan stood talking to the three _Sufis_, the Master was in a low voice instructing his own men.

"Everything now depends on the outcome of the approaching contest,"

said he. "These people, irrespective of what we show them, will probably evince no surprise. If we allow any sign or word of astonishment to escape us, no matter what they do, they will consider us beaten and we shall lose all. There must be no indication of surprise, among you. Remain impa.s.sive, at all costs!" He turned to Brodeur, and in French warned him:

"Remember the signals, now. One mistake on your part may cost my life--more than that, the lives of all the Legion. Remember!"

"Count on me, my Captain!" affirmed Brodeur. The masked woman, coming to the Master's side, said also in French:

"I have one favor to ask of you!"

"Well, what?"

"Your life is worth everything, now. Mine, nothing. Let me subject myself--"

He waved her away, and making no answer, turned to the Olema.

"Hast thou, O Bara Miyan," he asked in a steady voice, "a swordsman who can with one blow split a man from crown to jaw?"

"Thou speakest to such a one, White Sheik!"

"Take, then, a simitar of the keenest, and cut me down!"

The old man turned, took from the hand of a horseman a long, curved blade of razor-keenness and with a heavy back. The Master glanced significantly at Brodeur, who knelt by the switchboard with one steady hand on a bra.s.s lever, the other on the control of a complex ray-focussing device.

Toward Bara Miyan the Master advanced across the turf. He came close.

For a moment the two men eyed each other silently.

"Strike, son of the Prophet!" cried the Master.

Up whirled the Olema's blade, flickering in the sun. The metallic _click_ of the bra.s.s switch synchronized with that sweep; Brodeur s.h.i.+fted the reflector by the fraction of a degree.