ly whole. Hardly half of them still
kept their slippers.

Torn, barefooted, burned, bleeding, decimated, they still laughed.
Wild gibes penetrated the door of the treasure-crypt, against which
the mad attack was already beginning to clash and thunder.

"Faith, but this is a grand fight!" the major exulted. "It's
Donnybrook with trimmings!" He waved his big fists enthusiastically on
high, and blinked his one good eye. "If a man can die this way, sure,
what's the use o' living?"

"Steady men! Steady!" the Master cautioned, reloading his gun. "No
time, now, for shouting. Load up! This fight's only begun!"

Already, as they recharged their weapons, the door was groaning under
the frantic attack of the Arabs and Maghrabis. Wild curses, howls to
Allah and to the Prophet, came in dull confusion through the massive
plates. A hail of blows besieged them. The bronze staples began to
bend.

"Come, men!" commanded the Master. "No chance to defend this position.
They'll be in, directly. There are thousands of them in reserve! Away
from here!"

"Where the devil _to_?" demanded the major, defiantly. "Hang to
it--give 'em blue Hell as they come through!"

The Master seized and flung him back.

"If you're so keen on dying," he cried, "you can die right now, for
insubordination! Back, away from here, you idiot!"

The major obeyed. The others followed. Already the door was
creaking, giving, as the Legionaries--now hardly more than a dozen in
number--began the first steps of their retreat, that should rank in
history with that of Xenophon's historic Ten Thousand.

The Greeks had all of God's outdoors for their maneuvers. These
Legionaries had nothing but dark pits and runways, unexplored, in the
bowels of a huge, fanatic city. Thus, their retreat was harder. But
with courage unshaken, they turned their backs on the yielding door,
and set their faces toward darkness and the unknown.

Two of their number lay dead inside this chamber where the Legionaries
now were. Nothing could be done for them; the bodies simply had to be
abandoned where they lay. Eight were dead in the passage outside the
chamber, their corpses mingled with those of Arabs and Maghrabis.

In the chamber, as the Master glanced back, he could see a heap of
bodies round the door. These bodies of attackers who had been pulled
inside and butchered, made a glad sight to the Master. He laughed
grimly.

"We're more than even with them, so far," he exulted. "We've b