erating. They saw his
distorted, torture-broken hand wildly gesticulating toward the floor.
"My Lieutenant, behold!"

"In the name of God, what now?" Leclair demanded, scimitar in hand.
The silver lamps struck high-lights from that gleaming blade, as he
turned toward his orderly. Never had he seen the man seized and shaken
by excitement as at this moment. "What hast thou found, Lebon? What?"

"But behold--behold!" choked the orderly. Articulation failed him. He
stammered into unintelligible cries. The Legionaries crowded toward
him. And in the dumb stupefaction that overcame them, the roaring
tumult at the door was all forgotten. The sentence of death hanging
above them, faded to nothing.

Even the Master's cold blood leaped and thrilled, at realization of
what he was now beholding as the silver lamps swung from out-stretched
hands. Bohannan, for once, was too dazed for exuberance.

Only the Master could find words.

"Well, men," said he, in even tones. "Here it is, at last. We're
seeing something no Feringi ever saw before--the hidden treasure of
Jannati Shahr!"

CHAPTER XLV

THE JEWEL HOARD

Men do strange things, at times, when confronted by experiences
entirely outside even the limits of imagination. At sight of the
perfectly overwhelming masses of wealth that lay there in square pits
chiseled out of the solid gold, most of the Legionaries reacted like
men drunk or mad.

The hoard before them was enough to unbalance reason.

Leclair began to curse with amazing fluency in French and Arabic,
while his orderly fell into half-hysterical prayer. Bristol--stolid
Englishman though he was--had to make a strong effort to keep his
teeth from chattering. The two Italians, one with an ugly wound on
the jaw, burst out laughing, waving their arms extravagantly. Simonds
shouted jubilation and began to jump about in the most extraordinary
fashion. Wallace sat down heavily on the floor, held his lamp out over
one of the pits and stared with blank incomprehension.

As for the major, he dropped to his knees, threw down his weapons and
plunged his arms up to the elbows in the sliding sparkle of the gems.
To have heard him babble, one would have given him free entrance into
any lunatic asylum.

The only two who had remained appreciably calm were "Captain Alden"
and the Master. But even they, as fully as all the rest, forgot the
impending menace of attack. For a moment, even their ears were deaf
to the muffled tu