with
incalculable wealth.

"Now I'm satisfied," he remarked in more rational tones. "I reckon I
must be worth more money, as I stand here, than any human being that
ever lived. You're looking at the richest man in the world, gentlemen!
And I'm going to die, the richest. If that's not some distinction,
what is? For a man that was bone-poor, fifteen minutes ago! Now, sir--"

A sudden cry interrupted him. That cry came from "Captain Alden."

"Here! Look here!"

"What is it?" demanded the Master. He started toward her, while
outside the door sounded dull commands, as if the Arabs-now organized
to effective work-were already preparing to blow open the last barrier
between them and their victims.

"What now?" the Master repeated, striding toward her.

"_See! See here!_"

CHAPTER XLVII

A WAY OUT?

The woman stood pointing into a black recess at the far end of the
crypt. All that the Master could discern there, at first, was a
darkness even greater than that which shrouded the corners of the
vault.

"Light, here!" he commanded. Ferrara swung a lamp, by its chain,
into the recess. They saw a low, square opening in the wall of dull,
gleaming metal.

"A passage, eh?" the Master ejaculated.

"Maybe a _cul-de-sac_," she answered. "But--there's no telling--it may
lead somewhere."

"By Allah! Men! Here--all of you!"

The Master's voice rang imperatively. They all came trooping with
naked or slippered feet that slid in the wet redness of the floor.
Broken exclamations sounded.

Seizing the lamp, the Master thrust it into the opening, which
measured no more than four feet high by three wide. The light smokily
illuminated about three yards of this narrow passage. Then a sharp
turn to the right concealed all else.

Whither this runway might lead, to what peril or what trap it might
conduct them, none could tell. Very strongly it reminded the Master
of the gallery in the Great Pyramid of Gizeh, which he had seen
twelve years before--the gallery which in ancient days had served as a
death-trap for treasure-seekers.

That gallery, he remembered, had contained a cleverly hidden stone
in its floor which once on a time had precipitated pilferers down a
vertical shaft more than a hundred feet, to death, in the bowels of
that huge, terrifying mausoleum.

Was this passage of similar purpose and design? In all probability,
yes. Oriental ways run parallel in all the lands of the East.

Nevertheless, the passage o