pted 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. This cord in some way had been severed by
the Sheik's rifle when the old man had fallen. The leather sack had
rolled a few feet away. Now, with hands that shook so that the Arab
could hardly control them, Rrisa was holding out this sack as he
staggered through the blinding sand-storm towards his chief.

"_Al Hamdu Lillah!_" (Praise to the Lord of the Three Worlds!) choked
Rrisa in a strange voice, fighting for his very breath. "See--see what
I--have found!"

Staring, blinking, trying to shelter his eyes against the demons of
the storm, the Master turned toward him.

"What, Rrisa?"

Down into the wady stumbled the Arab, gray-powdered with clinging
sand.

"Oh," he choked, "it has been taken from these _yezid_, these abusers
of the salt! Now we rescue it from these cut-off ones! From the swine
and brothers of the swine it has been taken by Allah, and put back
into the hands of Rrisa, Allah's slave! See, _M'alme_, see!"

The shaking hands extended the leather sack. At it the Master stared,
his face going dead white.

"Thou--dost not mean--?" he stammered.

"Truly, I do!"

"Not Kaukab el Durri?"

"Aye--it was lying near that heretic dog!"

"The Great Pearl Star, the sacred loot from the Haram?"

"Kaukab el Durri, _M'alme_. The Great Pearl Star itself!"

CHAPTER XXVI

THE SAND-DEVILS

With hands that quivered in unison with his nerves, now no longer
impassive, the strange chief of this still stranger expedition took
from Rrisa the leather sack. Over the top of the wady a million
sand-devils were screeching. The slither of the dry snow--the white,
fine snow of sand--filled all space with a whispering rustle that
could be heard through the shouting of the simoom.

Sand was beating on them, everywhere, in the darkness lighted only by
the tortured beach-fire. The stinging particles assailed eyes, ears,
mouth; it whitened clothing, sifted into hair, choked breath. But
still the Legionaries could not take shelter under their coats. In
this moment of wondrous finding, they must see the gem of gems that
Kismet had thus flung into their grasp.

The Master loosed a knot in the cord, drew the sack open and shook
into his left palm a th