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Updated: June 28, 2025
More distinctly, now, the murmur of Arab voices was becoming audible. The Master leaped. Far below, at the bottom of the pit, as the Arabs burst into the wine-vault, sounded a final impact of some heavy body striking swift water that swept it instantly away. Then silence filled the black, rock-hewn chamber in the labyrinthine depths of Jannati Shahr. The Desert. Four men, one woman.
It had been carved out in situ, the soft metal being fashioned with elaborate skill and long patience. Jannati Shahr seemed, on a larger scale and a vastly more magnificent plan, something like the hidden rock-city of Petra in the mountains of Edom a city wholly carved by the Edomites out of the solid granite, without a single stone having been laid in mortar.
"May the peace be upon thee," all at once exclaimed Bara Miyan, gesturing for the Master to enter the vast hall. "Peace, until the rising of the day!" "And upon thee, the peace!" the Master answered, with the correct Arabic formula. They entered, and after them the other Legionaries and the sub-chiefs of Jannati Shahr. The banquet-hall was enormous.
The man blinked into the glare, across which sand-devils of whirlwinds were once more gyrating over a whiteness ending in dunes that seemed to be peppered with camel-grass. Another mirage! Grass could grow only near the coast. And now that they had both been tortured to death by Jannati Shahr men and been flung into Jehannum, how could there be any coast? It seemed so preposterous.
Is it not better that these very precious things be kept in greater safety at the Jannati Shahr? Come, Rrisa! Arise!" The orderly made no move, uttered no sound. The Master dragged him up, held him, peered into his face that had gone quite ashen under its brown. "Why, Lord! the man has fainted dead away!" exclaimed the Master.
Thirsts were on his Celtic soul that longed for dalliance with the Orient; but he well knew that tone of voice, and sadly resigned himself to abstinence. "Keep your revolvers loose in the holsters, men," the Master added, as Bara Miyan gestured toward the slowly opening entrance of the citadel a massive door as all doors seemed in Jannati Shahr; a door of gold reinforced with huge teak beams.
But I see that ye can ride like men. Well done! Salaam!" The Master returned a "Bïkum!" of thanks. He would have been glad to wipe his forehead, streaming with sweat; and so, too, would the others. But pride restrained them. Not for them such weakness as the use of a handkerchief, in presence of these half-hundred grave-eyed, silently observing men of Jannati Shahr.
Silence fell upon the banquet-hall, where still the thin, perfumed incense-smoke writhed aloft and where still the motionless Maghrabi men stood in those ominous lines along the silk-tapestried walls. "And what things," began the Olema, "doth thy heart desire, in this city of Jannati Shahr? Tell thy wish, and perchance it shall be granted thee!" The Master paused, deliberately.
These moved out as far as the Zerghun Shahr; and here the Ameer, with some of his principal nobles, came into camp, declaring that they could not control the soldiery of Cabul, but that he had come to show his friendship to the English. The brigades of Generals Baker and Macpherson joined the advance at Zerghun; and on the 29th a durbar was held.
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