"We have not touched the gem," answered the old Bedouin, "nor had the
Franks molested it. Men have looked on it and lived; but no mortal may
touch it and survive." *       *       *       *       *

Nureddin started to speak, gazed at the stubborn, uneasy faces and
realized the futility of argument. His attitude changed abruptly. "I am master here," he snapped, dropping a hand to his holster. "I have
not sweat and bled for this gem to be balked at the last by groundless
fears! Stand back, all! Let any man cross me at the peril of his head!" He faced them, his eyes blazing, and they fell back, cowed by the force
of his ruthless personality. He strode boldly up the marble steps,
and the Arabs caught their breath, recoiling toward the door; Yar
Ali, conscious at last, groaned dismally. God! thought Steve, what a
barbaric scene!--bound captives on the dust-heaped floor, wild warriors
clustered about, gripping their weapons, the raw acrid scent of blood
and burnt powder still fouling the air, corpses strewn in a horrid
welter of blood, brains and entrails--and on the dais, the hawk-faced
shaykh, oblivious to all except the evil crimson glow in the skeleton
fingers that rested on the marble throne. A tense silence gripped all as Nureddin stretched forth his hand
slowly, as if hypnotized by the throbbing crimson light. And in Steve's
subconsciousness there shuddered a dim echo, as of something vast and
loathsome waking suddenly from an age-long slumber. The American's
eyes moved instinctively toward the grim cyclopean walls. The jewel's
glow had altered strangely; it burned a deeper, darker red, angry and
menacing. "Heart of all evil," murmured the shaykh, "how many princes died for
thee in the Beginnings of Happenings? Surely the blood of kings throbs
in thee. The sultans and the princesses and the generals who wore
thee, they are dust and are forgotten, but thou blazest with majesty
undimmed, fire of the world----"

Nureddin seized the stone. A shuddery wail broke from the Arabs, cut
through by a sharp inhuman cry. To Steve it seemed, horribly, that the
great jewel had cried out like a living thing! The stone slipped from
the shaykh's hand. Nureddin might have dropped it; to Steve it looked
as though it leaped convulsively, as a live thing might leap. It rolled
from the dais, bounding from step to step, with Nureddin springing
after it, cursing as his clutching hand missed it. It struck the floor,
veered sharply, and despite the deep dust, rolled like a revolving ball
of fire toward the back wall. Nureddin was close upon it--it struck the
wall--the shaykh's hand reached for it. A scream of mortal fear ripped the tense silence. Without warning
the solid wall had opened. Out of the black wall that gaped there,
a tentacle shot and gripped the shaykh's body as a python girdles
its victim, and jerked him headlong into the darkness. And then the
wall showed blank and solid once more; only from within sounded a
hideous, high-pitched, muffled screaming that chilled the blood of
the listeners. Howling wordlessly, the Arabs stampeded, jammed in a
battling, screeching mass in the doorway, tore through and raced madly
down the wide stairs. Steve and Yar Ali, lying helplessly, heard the frenzied clamor of
their flight fade away into the distance, and gazed in dumb horror at
the grim wall. The shrieks had faded into a more horrific silence. Holding their breath, they heard suddenly a sound that froze the blood
in their veins--the soft sliding of metal or stone in a groove. At the
same time the hidden door began to open, and Steve caught a glimmer in
the blackness that might have been the glitter of monstrous eyes. He
closed his own eyes; he dared not look upon whatever horror slunk from
that hideous black well. He knew that there are strains the human brain
cannot stand, and every primitive instinct in his soul cried out to
him that this thing was nightmare and lunacy. He sensed that Yar Ali
likewise closed his eyes, and the two lay like dead men. *       *       *       *       *

Clarney heard no sound, but he sensed the presence of a horrific evil
too grisly for human comprehension--of an Invader from Outer Gulfs and
far black reaches of cosmic being. A deadly cold pervaded the chamber,
and Steve felt the glare of inhuman eyes sear through his closed lids
and freeze his consciousness. If he looked, if he opened his eyes, he
knew stark black madness would be his instant lot. [Illustration: "If he looked, if he opened his eyes, he knew that stark
black madness would be his instant lot."] He felt a soul-shakingly foul breath against his face and knew that the
monster was bending close above him, but he lay like a man frozen in a
nightmare. He clung to one thought: neither he nor Yar Ali had touched
the jewel this horror guarded. Then he no longer smelled the foul odor, the coldness in the air
grew appreciably less, and he heard again the secret door slide in
its groove. The fiend was returning to its hiding-place. Not all the
legions of Hell could have prevented Steve's eyes from opening a
trifle. He had only a glimpse as the hidden door slid to--and that one
glimpse was enough to drive all consciousness from his brain. Steve
Clarney, iron-nerved adventurer, fainted for the only time in his
checkered life. How long he lay there Steve never knew, but it could not have been
long, for he was roused by Yar Ali's whisper, "Lie still, _sahib_, a
little shifting of my body and I can reach thy cords with my teeth." Steve felt the Afghan's powerful teeth at work on his bonds, and as he
lay with his face jammed into the thick dust, and his wounded shoulder
began to throb agonizingly--he had forgotten it until now--he began to
gather the wandering threads of his consciousness, and it all came
back to him. How much, he wondered dazedly, had been the nightmares of
delirium, born from suffering and the thirst that caked his throat? The
fight with the Arabs had been real--the bonds and the wounds showed
that--but the grisly doom of the shaykh--the thing that had crept out
of the black entrance in the wall--surely that had been a figment of
delirium. Nureddin had fallen into a well or pit of some sort--Steve
felt his hands were free and he rose to a sitting posture, fumbling for
a pocket-knife the Arabs had overlooked. He did not look up or about
the chamber as he slashed the cords that bound his ankles, and then
freed Yar Ali, working awkwardly because his left arm was stiff and
useless. "Where are the Bedouins?" he asked, as the Afghan rose, lifting him to
his feet. "Allah, _sahib_," whispered Yar Ali, "are you mad? Have you forgotten? Let us go quickly before the djinn returns!" "It was a nightmare," muttered Steve. "Look--the jewel is back on the
throne----" His voice died out. Again that red glow throbbed about
the ancient throne, reflecting from the moldering skull; again in
the outstretched finger-bones pulsed the Fire of Asshurbanipal.