th."

"No myth, but solid fact!" exulted the Master, with a strange laugh.
"This, Lieutenant, is the very treasure that Mohammed gathered
together during many years of looting caravans in the desert and
of capturing _sambuks_ on the Red Sea. Arabia, India, and China all
contributed to it. The Prophet gave it to his favorite wife, Ayeshah,
as he lay dying at Medina in the year 632, with his head in her lap.

"Next to the Black Stone, itself, it is possibly the most precious
thing in Islam. And now, now with this Great Pearl Star in our hands,
what is impossible?"

Silence fell between the two men. They still huddled there in the
partial protection of the wady, while all the evil _jinnee_ of the
sand-storm shrieked blackly overhead. With no further words they
continued to study the wondrous thing. The fire was dying, now, burned
out by the fierce blast of the storm and blown away to sea in long
spindrifts of spark and vapor, white as the sand-drive itself. By the
fading light little could now be seen of the Great Pearl Star. The
Master replaced it in its leather bag, knotted the cord securely about
the mouth of the receptacle, and pocketed it.

A rattle of pebbles down the side of the wady, and a grunting call,
told them Rrisa had returned. Dimly they saw him dragging the old
Sheik over the lip of the gully, down into its half-protection. He
brought the unconscious man to them, and--though bowed by the frenzy
of the storm--managed a salute.

"Here, Master, I have saved him from the _jinnee_ of the desert,"
Rrisa pantingly announced. His voice trembled with a passionate hate;
his eyes gleamed with excitement; his nails dug into the palms of his
hands. "Now Master, gladden my eyes and expand my breast by letting me
see this old jackal's blood!"

"No, Rrisa," the Master denied him. "I have other use for the old
jackal. Other punishments await him than death at my hands."

"What punishments, Master?" the Arab cried with terrible eagerness.

"Wait, and thou shalt see. And remember always, I am thy sheik, thy
preserver, with whom thou hast shared the salt. 'He who violates the
salt shall surely taste Jahannum!'"

"Death shall have me, first!" cried Rrisa, and fell silent. And for
a while the three men crouched in the wady with the two unconscious
ones, torturer and victim. At length the Master spoke:

"This won't do, Lieutenant. We must be getting back."

Leclair peered at him in the screaming dark.

"Why, my Cap