jingo!" he exclaimed.

"Wine-sacks--in a Moslem city?" demanded the Master. "Impossible!"

"What else are these, sir?" the Englishman asked, pointing.

The Master strode to the corner where he stood, and flared his lamp
over a score of distended goat-hides.

"Well, by Allah!" he ejaculated.

"Sacrificial wine," put in Leclair, at his elbow. "See the red seals,
with the imprint of the star and crescent, here and here?" He touched
a seal with his finger. "Rare old wine, I'll wager!"

"Wine!" gulped the major, whose excitable nerves had been frayed to
madness. "Wine, by God! Faith, but it's the royal thirst I have on me!
Who's got a knife?"

The Master thrust him back with such violence that he slipped on the
wet floor and nearly fell.

"You'll get no knife, sir, and you'll drink no sacrificial wine!" he
cried, with more of anger in his voice than any of the Legion had yet
heard. "The jewels--yes, I gave you your fool's way, on those. But no
wine!

"We of the Flying Legion are going to die, sober men! There'll be no
debauchery--no tradition handed down among those Moslem swine that
they butchered us, drunk. If any of you men want to die right now,
broach one of those wine-sacks!"

His simitar balanced itself for action. The glint in his eye, by the
wavering lamp-shine, meant stern business. Not a hand was extended
toward the tautly distended sacks.

Bohannan's whispered curse was lost in a startled cry from Wallace.

"Here's something!" he exclaimed. "Look at this ring, will you?"

They turned to him, away from the wine-bags. Wallace had fallen to his
knees and was scraping slime from the wet floor--the slime of ages of
dust mingled with viscid moisture from the steam that, thinly blurring
the dark air, had condensed on the walls and run down.

Emilio thrust down the lamp he held. There on the stone floor, they
saw a huge, rust-red iron ring that lay in a circular groove cut in
the black granite.

This ring was engaged in a metal staple let into the stone. And now,
as they looked more closely, and as some Legionaries scraped the floor
with eager hands, a crack became visible in the floor of the vault.

"Look out, men!" the Master cautioned. "This may be a trap that will
swing open and drop us into God knows what! Stand back, all--take your
time, now! Go slow there!"

They heeded, and stood back. The Master himself, assuming all risks,
got down on hands and knees and explored the crack in the floor.