CHAPTER XLVIII
THE RIVER OF NIGHT
The major's clenched fist was caught as it drove, by a scientificguard from the Master's right. The Master dropped his lamp, and with astraight left-hander sprawled Bohannan on the slimy pave. Impersonallyhe stood over the crazed Celt.
"Will you jump, voluntarily," demanded he, "or shall we be under thepainful necessity of having to throw you down that pit?"
Enough rationality remained in the major to spur his pride. He crawledto his feet, chastened.
"You win, sir," he answered. "Who goes first?"
A dull reverberation shuddered the rock, the air.
"_Vive Nissr_!" exulted Leclair. "Ah, now our men, they attack thecity!"
"I'm sorry to disillusion you," the Master answered, "but my explosiveproduces an entirely different type of concussion. What we have justheard is the blowing-in of the treasure-crypt door. There's no time tolose, now. Who jumps, first?"
"Wait a minute!" cried "Captain Alden." Her eyes were gleaming throughthe mask, with keen excitement. "Why neglect any chance of possiblysurviving?"
"What do you mean?" the Master demanded.
"Those wine-sacks!"
"Well?"
"Emptied, inflated, and tied up again, they'll float us! It's theoldest kind of device used in the Orient!"
"By Allah, inspiration! Quick, men, the wine-skins!"
Himself, he set the example. Knife in hand, while Emilio held the lampfor him, he crumbled the seals on one of the goat-skins, then cutthe leather thong that secured the neck, and quickly unwound it. Hedragged the sack to the black pit and tipped it up.
With a gulp and a gurgle, the precious old wine, clear ruby under thedim light, gushed away down the steaming shaft that plunged to theRiver of Night.
"Oh, faith now, but that's a damned shame, sir!" Bohannan protested,rubbing an ugly welt on his brow. His voice was thick, dull,unnatural. Madness glimmered in his blinking eyes. "With the blessedtongue of me parched to a cinder! And wine like that! Here, sir--takea handful of diamonds, or whatever, and give me just one littledrink!"
'"'Bristol! Restrain that man!" the Master ordered. "If you can'thandle him, get help!"
As a couple of Legionaries laid hands on the major, another voicespoke up. It was that of Ferrara, the Italian ace:
"The major is right, sir, in spite of all! Good wine in our throatswould make death less bitter. 'We who are about to die, salutethee'--and ask wine!"
The Master peered sharply from beneath black brows. Discipline seemedcrumbling. Now at what might be, perhaps, the last minute of hiscommand, was the Master's word to be made light of? Were his orders tobe gainsaid?
"No wine!" he flung at all of them, his voice tense as wire. "Who sayswe are about to die? Why, there may be a fighting chance, even yet!This underground river may come to light, somewhere. And if it does,it may bear us back to day, again.
"But the confusion of wine may just turn the scale against our gettingthrough. No wine! We started on that basis. That's the basis we're goingthrough on. No wine, I say--no wine!"
Murmurs answered him, but no man dared rebel. Discipline still grippedthe Legionaries. The Master drove them to labor. "Come, quick now!Prepare a sack, apiece! I'll show you how!"
He set lips to the emptied skin, and with many lungfuls of strongbreath inflated it. The leather thong tightly wrapped the neck. Hedoubled that neck over, and took more turns with the thong, then tiedit in a tight square knot.
"Get to work, men!" he ordered. "To work!"
They obeyed. Even the major, brain-shaken as he was, fell in withthe orders. The floor, all round the black pit, ran red with preciouswine, a single cupful of which would have delighted the heart of theworld's most Lucullian gourmet.
Up from that floor and from the jetty, steaming walls of the pitdrifted ambrosial perfume that evoked visions of ancient vineyardswhere, under the Eastern sun, bloomy clusters of grape--mayhap eventhe very grape sung by the Tent-maker--hung ripening.
Still, none stooped to the mouths of the wine-skins, to taste. Nonedrank from cupped palm. Dry-mouthed, hot, panting, the Legionariesstill obeyed. And thus the rare wine of Araby ran guttering to theunseen blackness of the mystery river far below.
The Master, hands on hips, watched this labor; and as he watched helaughed.
"Whatever comes to us, men," judged he, "we are here and now doinggreat evil to the men of El Barr. My only regret is that we haven'ttime to return up through the labyrinth, to the jewel-crypt, fill theskins with jewels and dump them all down this shaft like the wine.These Moslem swine would then remember us, many a long day. Ah, well,some day we may come back--who knows?"
He fell silent, while the last of the skins were being filled andlashed. The last, that is to say, needed by the Legionaries. Ten inall, were now blown up and securely tied. But a good many more stillremained full of the rare wine.
With his simitar, the Master slashed these quickly, one by one.
"They took our blood," he cried. "We have taken theirs--and theirwine, too. And have destroyed Myzab and the Black Stone, no doubt.Well, it's a bargain!"
"C'est egal!" exclaimed Leclair. "More than that, eh, my Captain?"
The Master returned to the shaft, his bare feet red through the runand welter of the wine on the stone floor.
"Now men," said he, crisply, as he flung down the pit his simitarwhich could have no further use, "this may be the final chapter. OurLegion was organized for adventure. We've had it. No one can complain.If it's good-bye, now--so be it.
"There may be a chance, however, of winning through. Hold fast toyour goat-skins; and if the hidden river isn't too hot, and if there'shead-room, some of us may get through to daylight. Let us try toreassemble where we find the first practicable stopping-place. If theJannati Shahr men are waiting for us, there, don't be taken alive.Remember!
"Now, give me your hand, each one, and--down the shaft with you!"
Simonds went first, boldly, without a quiver of fear. Silently andwith set jaw, he shook hands with the Master, clutched a distendedwine-bag in both arms, and quickly leaped.
His body vanished, instantly, from sight. Steam and darkness swallowedit. Far below, a dull splash told of his disappearance.
Lebon followed, after having given his torture-twisted hand to hisbeloved lieutenant, as well as to the Master.
"Notre Pere qui etes aux cieux!" he stammered, as the pit receivedhim.
Then went Wallace, Ferrara, and Emilio. Of these three, only the lastshowed anything resembling the white feather. Emilio's face was waxen,with staring eyes reflecting unspeakable horror, as he took the leapinto the River of Night. But he went mutely, with no outcry.
Bristol, sheathed in imperturbable British aplomb, remarked:
"Well, so long, boys! This is jolly beastly, eh? But we'll meet onthat beautiful shore!"
Then he, too, jumped into the black.
Leclair, inappropriately enough, leaped with a shout of: "Vive laFrance!"
Now only Bohannan, "Captain Alden," and the Master were left.
"You're next, Major!" the Master ordered, pointing atthe inexorable black mouth of the pit, whence rose the thin,wraith-spirals of vapor.
"I'm ready!" exclaimed the major. "Sure, what's better than a hot bathafter the heavy exercise we've been having?" His voice rose buoyantlyover the drumming roar of the mysterious, underground torrent. "Ready,sir! But if you'll only give me one wee sup of good liquor, sir, I'lldie like an Irishman and a gentleman--of fortune!"
"No, liquor, Major," the Master answered, shaking his head. "Can't yousee for yourself all the wine-sacks are cut?"
"Cut, is it? Well, well, so they are!" The major blinked redly.Obviously his confused mind had not grasped the situation. "Well,sure, that's a pity, now." And he fell to gnawing that tawny mustacheof his.
"Come Major, you're next!" the Master bade him. "Take your wine-skinand jump!"
Clarity of mind for a moment returned to Bohannan. Gallantly he shookhands wi
th the Master, saluted "Captain Alden," and picked up hiswine-sack.
"It's a fine whirl we've had," he affirmed, with one of his old-timesmiles, his teeth gleaming by the light of the silver lamp in theMaster's hand. "No man could ask a better."
I'd rather have seen what I've seen, and done what I've done, and nowjump to Hell and gone, than be safe and sound this minute on Broadway.
"Please overlook any little irregularities of conduct, sir My brain,you know, and--well, good-bye!"
Calmly he picked up his sack and without more ado jumped into thevoid.
"Now," said the Master, when "Captain Alden" and he remained alone."Now--you and I!"
"Yes," the woman answered. "You and I, at last!"
The Master set down his lamp on the floor all wet with condensed vaporand wine. He loosened the buckles of her mask, took the mask off andtossed it into the pit.
"Finis, for _that_!" said he, and smiled strangely. "You aren't goingto be handicapped by any mask, in whatever struggle lies ahead of us.If you get through to the world, and to life again, you get through asa woman.
"If not, you die as one. But the disguise is done with, and gone. Youunderstand me!"
"Yes. I understand," she answered, and stood peering up at him. Noteven the white welts and ridges cut in her flesh by the long wearingof the mask could make her face anything but very beautiful. Herwonderful eyes mirrored far more, as they looked into this strangeman's, than would be easy to write down in words.
"I understand," she repeated. "If this is death, I couldn't havedreamed or hoped for a better one. In that, at least, we can beeternally together--you and I!"
Silence fell, save for the shuddering roar of the black river, thatrose with vapors from the dark pit. Man and woman, they searched outeach other's souls with their gaze.
Then all at once the Master took her hand, and brought it to his heartand held it there. The lamp-shine, obliquely striking upward from thefloor, cast deep shadows over their faces; and these shadows seemedsymbolic of the shadows of death closing about them at this hour ofself-revelation.
"Listen," said the Master, in a wholly other voice from any thathad ever come from his lips. "I am going to tell you something. At amoment like this, a man speaks only the exact truth. This is the exacttruth.
"In all the years of my life and in all my wanderings up and down thisworld, I have never seen a woman--till now--whom I felt that I couldlove. I have lived like an anchorite, celled in absolute isolationfrom womankind. Incredible as it may seem to you, I have never evenkissed a woman, with a kiss of love. But--I am going to kiss you,now."
He took her face in both his hands, drew it up for a moment, gazedat it with a fixity of passion that seemed to burn. The woman's eyesdrooped shut. Her lips yearned to his. Then his stern arms in-drew herto his breast, and for a moment she remained there, silently.
All at once he put her from him.
"Now, go!" he commanded. "I shall follow, close. And wait for me--ifthere is any waiting!"
He picked up one of the two remaining wine-sacks, and put it into herhands.
"Cling to this, through everything!" he commanded. "Cling, as you lovelife. Cling, as you share my hope for what may be, if life is grantedus! And--the mercy-bullet, if it comes to that!
"Now--good-bye!"
She smiled silently and was gone.
The Master, now all alone, stood waiting yet a moment. His face wasbloodless. His lower lip was mangled, where his teeth had nearly met,through it.
Already, a confused murmur of sound was developing, from the blackopening of the passage that had led the Legionaries down to this cryptof the wine-sacks and the pit.
He smiled, oddly.
"Many a corpse has been flung down this _oubliette_," said he. "I hateto go, without emptying my pistol into a few more of the Moslem swine,and dropping them down here to join my people. But--I must!"
He bent, gathered together the silver lamps left by his men, and threwthem all into the abyss. Blackness, absolute, blotted the reekingchamber from his sight.
The faintest possible aura of light began to loom from the mouthof the passage. More distinctly, now, the murmur of Arab voices wasbecoming audible.
The Master leaped.
Far below, at the bottom of the pit, as the Arabs burst into thewine-vault, sounded a final impact of some heavy body striking swiftwater that swept it instantly away.
Then silence filled the black, rock-hewn chamber in the labyrinthinedepths of Jannati Shahr.
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