eaten
them, so far! The rest will get us, all right enough, but Jannati
Shahr will remember the coming of the white men!"

The survivors--the Master, Bohannan, "Captain Alden," and Leclair and
nine others--were in evil case, as they trailed down the low-roofed
chamber lighted with copper lamps. More than half bore wounds.
Some showed bleeding faces, others limp arms; still others hobbled
painfully, leaving bloody trails on the floor of dull gold. Curses on
the Arabs echoed in various tongues. This first encounter had taken
frightful toll of the Legion.

But every heart that still lived was bold and high. Not one of the
little party entertained the slightest hope of surviving or of ever
beholding the light of day. Still, not one uttered any word of despair
or suggestion of surrender.

Everything but a fight to the finish was forgotten. Only one man even
thought of _Nissr_ and of what probably had happened out there on the
plain. This man was Leclair.

"_Dieu_!" he grunted. "An accident, eh? Something must have gone
wrong--or did the brown devils attack? I hope our men outside
made good slaughter of these Moslem pigs, before they died. Eh, my
Captain?"

"Well?"

"Is it not possible that _Nissr_ and our men still live? That they
will presently bombard the city? That they may rescue us?"

The Master shook his head.

"They may live," he answered, "but as for rescuing us--" His gesture
completed the idea. Suddenly he pointed.

"See!" he cried. "Another door!"

CHAPTER XLIV

INTO THE JEWEL-CRYPT

It was time some exit should be discovered. The tumult had notably
increased, at the barred entrance. The staples could not hold, much
longer.

The Legionaries pressed forward. At the far end of the chamber,
another door was indeed visible; smaller than the first, low, almost
square, and let into a deep recess in the elaborately carved wall of
gold.

Barefooted, in their socks, or some still in slippers, they reached
this door. A little silence fell on them, as they inspected it.
One man coughed, spitting blood. Another wheezed, with painful
respiration. The smell of sweat and blood sickened the air.

"That's some door, all right!" judged Bohannan, peering at its dark
wood, heavily banded with iron. "Faith, but they've got a padlock on
that, big enough to hold the Pearly Gates!"

"It is only a question, now, of the key," put in Leclair, with French
precision.

"Faith, _here's_ a trap!" the Irishman