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Opening his desk-drawer, he assured himself the Pearl Star was still there. This done, he turned again to the map, carefully studied the location of the point Rrisa had designated, and going to the pilot-house gave directions for a new course to "Captain Alden," now at the wheel.
"My head is at your feet, M'almé, and I am yours to do with as you will, even to the death, but I implore you, by the beard of the Prophet, do not do this thing!" "And why not, Rrisa?" "You and I, Master, are akhawat. Therefore I can speak true words. You must not go to Mecca. No man of the Nasara may go there and live."
Then he arose, took up his javelin again, and with a clear conscience since now his rites had all been fulfilled cried aloud: "Now, Master, I am ready for the work of helping Azraël, the death-angel, separate the souls and bodies of these Shiah heretics!" A sudden howling of a jackal startled Rrisa.
"There are plenty of means, here, to give these dogs the last sleep, without wasting good ammunition. Choose the weapon you can handle best, and fall to work!" With a curse on the heretic Beni Harb, and a murmur of thanks to Allah for this wondrous hour, Rrisa caught up a short javelin, of the kind called mirzak. The lieutenant chose a wide-bladed sword.
"What meaneth this old woman's babble, son of the Prophet?" "It is not that my heart hath turned to water, nor have the fountains of mine eyes been opened to pity," answered Rrisa. "But some things are worse than death, to all of Arab blood. To be despoiled of arms or of horses, without a fight, makes an Arab as the worm of the earth. Then he becometh an outcast, indeed!
He finished his explanations, and, satisfied that all was safe, passed into his own cabin. Rrisa, he found, had already unpacked his kit, and had arranged it to perfection. Even a copper bowl of khat, the "flower of paradise," was awaiting him.
The words issued from his unwilling throat as if torn out by main force. "But I earnestly beg of you, my sheik, do not make me do this thing!" "Rrisa, if I command, thou must obey me! 'There is only one thing can ever loose the bonds I have knotted about thee." "That is certainty! It means Jehannum, and an unhappy couch shall it be!" Rrisa's face grew even more drawn and lined.
"Go, and think well of what I have told thee, and " But Rrisa, falling prone to the metal of the cabin floor, facing the Black 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 more than a little affected by the terror and devotion of his orderly.
My orderly! Lebon!" "God!" exclaimed the Master. "But " A cry from Rrisa interrupted him, a cry that flared down-wind with strange, wild exultation. The Arab had just risen from the sand, near the unconscious, in-drifting form of the Sheik, Abd el Rahman. In his hands he was holding something holding a leather sack with a broken cord attached to it.
Rrisa, at his gun-station, gnawed his fingers in rage and scorn of the pursuing Feringi, and cried: "Allah make it hard for you! Laan'abuk!" Old Sheik Abd el Rahman, close-locked in a cabin, quivered, not with fear, but with unspeakable grief and amazement past all telling. To be thus carried away through the heavens in the entrails of the unbelievers' flying dragon was a thing not to be believed.
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