CHAPTER LIII
THE GREATER TREASURE
New York, months later.
Spring had long departed--the spring of the year in which the Eagle ofthe Air had flung itself aloft from the Palisades, freighted with suchvast hopes.
Summer was past and gone. The sparkling wine of autumn had alreadybegun to bubble in the cup of the year.
Sunset, as when this tale began. Sunset, bronzing the observatory of_Niss'rosh_, on top of the huge skyscraper.
Two of the Legionaries--a woman and a man--were watching that sunsetfrom the western windows of that room where first had been conceivedthe wonder-flight which had spelled death for so many a stout heart.
You could see great changes had come upon the man, as he paced slowlyup and down the singular room, hands deep in the pockets of hisriding-trousers. His hair was grayer, for one thing, his face leaner;a certain sinewy strength had come to him that had not been therebefore.
Some marks of suffering still remained on him, that not all of lifecould take away. His eyes looked deeper and more wise, his mouth morehuman in its smile. That he had learned to smile, at all, meant much.And the look in his eyes, as he glanced at the woman, meant vastlymore. Yes, this man had learned infinitely much.
From a big, bamboo Chinese chair the woman was watching him.
Her eyes were musing, reminiscent. Her riding-costume well became her;and by the flush on her cheek you might have guessed they had bothjust come in from a long gallop together.
The costume gave her a kind of boyish charm; yet she remained entirelyfeminine. A kind of bronze mist seemed to envelop her head, as thedull-tawny sunset light fell on her from those broad windows. Near herriding-crop stood a Hindu incense-holder, with joss-sticks burning.As she took one of these and twirled it contemplatively, the blue-grayvapor spiraling upward was no more dreamy than her eyes.
"The invincible Orient!" she said, all at once. "It absorbs everythingand gives back nothing. And we thought, we hoped, we might conquerpart of it! Well--no--that's not done."
The man stopped his slow pacing, sat on the edge of the table anddrummed with his fingers on the teak.
"Not at the first attempt, anyhow," said he, after a little thought."I think, though, another time--but there's no use dreaming. Ofcourse, it's not the treasure I'm thinking about. That was just adetail. It's the men. Good men!"
She peered into the incense-smoke, as if exorcising the powers ofdarkness.
"They're not dead, not all of them!" she exclaimed with conviction.
"I wish I could believe you!"
"But you _must_ believe me! Something tells me some of our good chapsare still alive. All of them perhaps."
"Impossible!" He shook his head. "Even if they escaped the explosion,the Jannati Shahr devils must have massacred them." He shudderedslightly. "That's the worst of it. Death is all right. But thecrucifixion, and all--"
"Cold reason paints a cruel picture, I admit," the woman answered,laying a hand on the man's. "But you know--a woman's intuition. Idon't believe as you do. And the major--and that rumor we got from oldNasr ed Din, the Hejaz rug-merchant down on Hester Street, how aboutthat?"
"Yes, I know. But--"
"How could a rumor like that come through, about a big, white-skinned,red-haired _Ajam_ slave held by that tribe near Jeddah? How could it,unless there were some truth back of it?"
"He wandered away into the desert, quite insane. It's not impossiblehe might have been captured. By Allah!" And the man struck the tablehard. "If I really believed Nasr ed Din--"
"Well?"
"I'd go again, if I died for it!"
"The pronoun's wrong. _We'd_ go!"
"Yes, _we_!" He took her hand. "We'd trail that rumor down and haveBohannan out of there, and the others too, if--but no, no, the thing'simpossible!"
"Nothing is impossible, I tell you, in the East. And haven't we hadmiracles enough? After we were judged pirates and condemned to die,by the International Aero Tribunal, wasn't it a miracle aboutthat pardon? That immunity, for your vibratory secrets that haverevolutionized the defensive tactics of the League's air-forces?"
She smiled up at him, through the vapor. "It's the impossible thathappens, these days! The soul within me tells me some of our chaps arestill alive, out there!"
She waved her smoky wand toward the large-scale map of Arabia on thewall.
"But Rrisa," said he. "About the others, there's no sense of guilt. Ifeel, though, like a murderer about Rrisa."
"Rrisa still lives!"
He shook his head.
"The incense tells me." She insisted. "My heart tells me!"
"Allah make it so! But even if he is dead, he died like the others--aman!"
"In pursuit of an ideal. We all had that, a dream and an ideal."
"Yes. It wasn't the treasure, of course," he mused. "It wasn'tmaterial things. It was adventure. Well--you and I have had that, atall events. And they had it too. They and we--all of us--we changedthe course of history for more than two hundred million human beings.And as for you and me--"
He turned, looking at the map. Then he got up from the table, went tothat map and laid a hand on the vast, blank expanse across which wasprinted only "Ruba el Khali"--the Empty Abodes.
"It would wreck the whole structure of civilization if we told," saidhe. The woman put back the incense-stick into its holder, got up andcame to stand beside him. "Imagine the horrible, vulture-like scrambleof capitalism to exploit that dyke of gold! There'd be expeditions,pools, combines, wars--we'd have the blood of uncounted thousands onour heads!
"It's not the treacherous El Barr people I'm thinking of. If theyperished, as they would to the last man defending their gold, all welland good. But in case any of our men are still alive there, _they'd_be butchered. And then, the destruction of gold as a medium ofexchange, by its gross plenty, would wreck the world with panics. Andthe greatest catastrophe of history would lie on our shoulders. Thatis why--"
"Why the secret must remain here," she said, touching her breast.
"_But_!" he exclaimed, and turned and took a pencil from the table.
In a bold hand he wrote, across the blank white spaces of the map,these characters in Arabic:
"_Nac'hna arivna_!" he exclaimed. "'_We know!_'"
A long silence followed. Both, with deep memories, were peering atthose words, as the light slowly faded in the west over the Palisades.The man was first to speak.
"This secret is ours," said he. "I have another, that even you don'tknow!"
"You have kept something from--_me_?"
"Only until I have quite dared tell you."
"Dared?"
"It isn't the mere, simple thing itself. It's the symbolism back ofit. Maybe even now I'm premature in telling you. But, somehow--"
He hesitated. This man of action, hard, determined, strong, seemedafraid.
"Somehow," he added, "you and I-have come so near to each other-andtonight, here in this room where it all started, we have seemed tounderstand each other so well, through the revocation of the past,that--yes, I'll show you--"
He thrust a hand into his breast-pocket and brought out a smallleather sack. Startled, she looked at it as he drew open the cord. Hetook from the sack a wondrous thing, luminous with nacreous hues.
"The Great Pearl Star," she cried. "Kaukab el Durri!"
"Yes, the Great Pearl Star, itself!"
She looked in silence. Then she reached out a hand and touched it, asif unbelieving.
"Why, you never told me!"
"I had a reason."
"And--through all that inferno, when every ounce had to beconsidered--"
"I was keeping this for--you."
There were tears in her eyes as he laid a hand on her shoulder.
"For you," he repeated. "It was mine, but it is mine no longer. Thiscrown-jewel of Islam is yours, now--if you will have it."
"If I will have it!" she whispered. "There's only one thing in thiswhole world I more dearly long for!"
"
I am offering you that, too," said the man, in a trembling voice. "Iknew nothing of it, nothing whatever, until I came to understand whata woman really could be. I fought against it--and lost.
"It came to me not sought after and welcomed, but storming over theramparts of my soul. Yes, I fought love--and lost."
"I understand that, too," she said.
"I put the Great Pearl Star in my breast, sacred to you. I said tomyself: 'If we ever live through this, and I feel worthy to give thisgem to her, I'll ask her to complete it.'"
"To complete it?"
"Yes. You see, one pearl was missing. The most wonderful of all. Now,as I clasp this necklace round your throat, the Great Pearl Star iscompleted."
"I--don't understand--"
"Ah, but _I_ do! The missing pearl of great price-you are that pearl.In giving the Great Pearl Star to you, I make it whole."
"And I give it back to you, completed!"
Her head lay on his heart. His lips were on her hair.
"Completion," he whispered. "Peace, to the troubled heart. Peace,after the night that life has been to me. Peace, till the dawn!"
"'Peace,'" she said, in the line of the ancient Arabic poem. "'Peace,until the coming of the stars.'"
"'Peace,'" he breathed. "'It is peace until the rising of the day!'"
THE END
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