s,
with rhombs of tile-red feldspath on a dark background like velvet or
charcoal, except for one reddish protuberance of an unknown substance.
A good blow with a hammer would surely break it along the original
lines of fracture--and this is well worth knowing and remembering".

"Well, so far so good," he concluded. "The Air Control Board hasn't
got us, yet. Neither have the Mohammedans. True, we've lost a number
of men, but that was to have been expected. That's inevitable, and we
still have enough. I hardly see that we have so very much to complain
of, so far."

He turned, pulled a blanket from his berth and carefully spread it
over the loot on the table. Then he pushed the button communicating
with the cabin wherein Rrisa was still quivering as a result of having
heard the fusillades and the terrific tumult--unseen though they had
been to him--at Mecca.

In a couple of minutes the faithful orderly appeared, salaamed, and
stood waiting with a drawn, troubled face.

"_Allah m'a!_" the Master greeted him, in Allah's name inquiring for
his good health. "I have something important to ask thee. Come in.
Come in, and close the door."

He spoke in Arabic. The orderly, in the same tongue, made answer as he
obeyed:

"The Master hath but to talk, and it is answered, if my knowledge can
suffice." His words were submissive; but the expression was strange
in his eyes, at sight of the blanket on the table. That blanket might
hide--what might it not hide? The light in his gaze became one the
Master had never yet seen there, not even in the sternest fighting at
Gallipoli.

"Mecca lieth behind us, Rrisa," the Master began. "Thou hast seen
nothing of it, or of what happened there?"

"Nothing, _M'alme._ I was bidden remain in my cabin, and the Master's
word is always my law. It is true that I heard sounds of a great
fighting, but I obeyed the Master. I saw nothing. The Sheik Abd el
Hareth, did you deliver him into the hands of the Faithful?"

"No, Rrisa. They refused to accept him. And now I have other plans
for him. It is well that thou didst see nothing, for it was a mighty
fighting and there was death both to them and to us. Now, my questions
to thee."

"Yea, Master?"

"Tell me this thing, first. Is it indeed true speaking, as I have
heard, that the Caliph el Walid the First, in Hegira 88, sent to Mecca
an immense present of gold and silver, forty camel-loads of small cut
gems and a hundred thousand _miskals_ in gold