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Updated: June 4, 2025
Old Bara Miyan bent shaggy white brows at the Master, and peered out intently from under the hood of his burnous. The Master queried: "What covenants, great Olema?" Then, that no blood of our people shall be shed in El Barr, either the city of Jannati Shahr or the plain. These things thou must understand, O Frank.
"No doubt thou art a great caïd in thy own country. It is strong magic, Frank. But now behold what mine imams can do!" The riflemen, disgruntled but still, Arab-like, holding their impassivity, returned to their horses and mounted again. At another call of Bara Miyan, three imams came from among the horsemen.
The imams gathered up the fragments in the cloths. "Now," said the Master, "thine imams will toss these cloths in the air, and three whole birds will fly away. The cloths will fall to earth, white as snow. Is that not thy magic?" Bara Miyan glowered at him with evil eyes. Not yet had his self-control been lost; but this mocking of the unbeliever had kindled wrath.
Our only real danger is that something might happen to it. But a few hours, now, will end all this. And in a few hours, what can happen?" The Arabs ceased their droning supplications to Allah, which had been rising with hypnotically soothing murmurs through the incensed air, and now followed Bara Miyan toward the raised platform. The old Sheik beckoned his guests.
Bara Miyan, clapping his hands again, summoned three horsemen 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 class known as Sufis. That he was about to face a redoubtable test could not be doubted.
"Now," the old man asked, "now, O Frank, wouldst thou see the cut jewels of the Caliph el Walid?" "Even so!" "Come, then!" And Bara Miyan gestured toward another door that led, at the left, out of the Chamber of the Pyramid. Again the strange procession formed itself, as before, with the gorilla-like Maghrabi stranglers a rear guard.
It is not I who load the guns with bullets made of soft black-lead, as the Effendi Robert-Houdin did long ago to the confusion of the Marabouts in Algeria. No, let thy men load their own rifles. But," and his voice grew mocking, "let their aim be good. Death is nothing, O Bara Miyan, but clumsy shooting means much pain." His tone galled the aged Sheik, despite that impassive exterior.
It is nearly done, this pyramid. But there still remain three-and-twenty vacant places to be filled." For a long minute, the eyes of the Master and of Bara Miyan met, in silence, with the torch-flare glinting strange lights from them. Then the Olema spoke. "Hast thou seen enough?" demanded he. "Mine eyes are filled." "And dost thou still ask rewards of gold?"
Abd el Rahman, the Great Apostate, as a living man, had forever passed 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 reassuring aspects. On the other hand, how many of these Maghrabi stranglers did Bara Miyan keep as a standing army?
Bara Miyan led the way in under the colonnade, which, though of gold like all else in this, wonder city, still offered grateful shade. The perpetual glare of the golden roadways, houses, towers, balconies even covered as many were with floating curtains of muslin or silk had been trying to eyes and nerves.
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