rient. For there was gold; there were gems and bits of worthless
dross intermingled; and there about it was drifting sand of infinite
ages, darkness, flashes of light, color, mystery, wonder, beauty.

"God! What this means!" the Master repeated, as the three men cringed
in the wady. "Success, dominion, power!"

"You mean--" put in Leclair, his voice smitten away by the
ever-increasing storm that ravened over the top of the gully.

"What do I _not_ mean, Lieutenant? No wonder the Apostate Sheik had to
flee from Mecca and take refuge here in this impassable wilderness at
the furthest rim of Islam! No wonder he has been hounded and hunted!
The only miracle is that some of his own tribesmen have not betrayed
him before now!"

"Master, no Arab betrays his own sheik, right or wrong!" said Rrisa in
a strange voice. "Before that, an Arab dies by his own hand!" He spoke
in Arabic, with a peculiar inflection.

Their eyes met a second by the light of the gusting fire.

"Right or wrong, _M'alme_!" repeated the Arab. Then he added: "Shall I
not now go to drag in the swine-brother Abd el Rahman?"

"Thou sayst, if he be left there--"

"Yes, Master, he will surely die. All who are not sheltered, now,
will die. All who lie there on the dune, will be drifted under, will
breathe sand, will perish."

"It is well, Rrisa. Go, drag in the swine-brother. But have a care to
harm him not. Thou wouldst gladly slay him, eh?"

"More gladly than to live myself! Still, I obey. I go, I bring him
safe to you, O Master!"

He salaamed, turned, and vanished up over the edge of the wady.

The lieutenant, warned of the danger of sand-breathing by an
unconscious man, drew the hood of the woollen _za'abut_ up over the
face of Lebon. There was nothing more he could do for the poor fellow.
Only with the passage of time could he be reawakened. The French ace
turned again to where his chief was still scrutinizing the Pearl Star
as he crouched in the wady, back to the storm-wind, face toward the
fire on the beach.

"Do you realize what this thing is?" demanded the Master, turning the
necklace in his hands. "Do you understand?"

"I have heard of it, my Captain. For years vague rumors have come to
me from the desert-men, from far oases and cities of the Sahara. Now
here, now there, news has drifted in to Algiers--not news, but rather
fantastic tales. Yes, I have often heard of the Kaukab el Durri. But
till now I have always believed it a story, a my