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They shall be given to the Great Olema, there, who is more fit to guard and keep them than the Sheriff of Mecca or than his sons Feisal and the two Alis. No harm shall befall them, and " "And your hand the hands of other Feringi who are not my masters have touched these things?" stammered Rrisa. "O my calamity! O my grief!" "Thou canst go now, Rrisa," the Master said.
So long as you did not ask me to do such things as would be unlawful in the eyes of Allah and the Prophet, and seek to force me to them, this hand of mine would wither before it would be raised against the preserver of my life! I pray you, M'almé, let me go!" "I grant it. Ru'c'h halla!" Rrisa salaamed again, and, noiseless as a wraith, departed.
But forward they drove, and broke into a ragged, sliding charge up the breast of the dunes. "Hold your fire, men! Hold it then give 'em Hell!" the Master shouted. He was in the first wave of the assault. Close by came Rrisa, his brown face contracted with fanatic hate of the Beni Harb, despoilers of the Haram sanctuary. There, too, was "Captain Alden," grim with masked face.
I imagine your orderly, Rrisa, will have something to say when he learns that we have Beni Harb as opponents. Now, sir, we shall make all haste to get the machine-guns into action!" Major Bohannan laughed with more enjoyment than he had shown since Nissr had left America. They both saluted and withdrew.
But now he took his course again, as he had intended to do from the Legion's fire; and presently rifle work from the Arabs, too, verified, his direction. The Master smiled. Leclair fingered the butt of his revolver. Rrisa whispered curses: "Ah, dog-sons, may you suffer the extreme cold of El Zamharir!
The wild mystery of that outer night, excluded by the close-drawn curtains, contrasted strongly with the light and the warm comfort of the cabin with its snug berth, its aluminum furniture, its shining walls where were affixed charts and maps, rules, photographs. Under the clear, white light, Rrisa anxiously studied his master's face.
The ticking of the aluminum-cased chronometer, now marking a little past 2 a.m., soothed him, as did the droning hum of the propellers, the piping whistle of the ship-made hurricane round the fuselage, the cradling swing and rock of the air-liner hurling herself almost due east. After some quarter-hour of absolute rest, he rang for his Arab orderly. Rrisa appeared at once.
Then, suddenly he stood up, faced the Arab, and bent on him a sternly penetrant look. "Rrisa," said he, impressively, his voice slow, grave, sonorous, "only for me thy bones would today be moldering in the trenches at Gallipoli or maybe rotting in a Turkish grave. The life that is in thee belongs to me! That is thy ancient law. Is it not true?" "It is true, Master. Nahnu malihin."
The Master spoke a few quick words of Arabic to his orderly. Rrisa knelt by the prostrate man. Then, while the Master kept the light-beam on him, Rrisa unbuckled the guard's belt, with cartridges and holster containing an ugly snouted gun. This belt the Arab slung round his own body. He arose. In silence, leaving the unconscious man just as he had fallen, they once more pushed onward.
The Arab advanced a brown, quivering hand. "Give me a pencil, Master, and I obey!" he answered, in a voice hardly audible. The chief handed him a pencil. Rrisa intelligently studied the map for nearly two minutes, then raised his hand and made a dot a few miles north-east of the intersection of fifty degrees east and twenty degrees north.