ONE ARABIAN NIGHT

Also published as “Makeda’s Cousin”

Originally published in Spicy-Adventure Stories, November 1934.

The breeze that swept out from the Arabian Desert wafted a whiff of even hotter fumes from the now silent engines of the great tri-motored plane and assured Glenn Farrell that it was not a dream. Petrol and hot lube and exhaust gases were never that vivid in any mirage.

Farrell was lean, broad of shoulder, craggy jawed, and at home from Surabaya to Timbuktu; yet his gray eyes were wide and the stern lines of his rugged face had dissolved in wonder. He had landed in a lost city whose very existence had for some twenty-eight dusty centuries been no more than a legend: the capital from which Balkis, Queen of Sheba, had set out to visit King Solomon.

And it was inhabited. Bronzed, bearded men were emerging from the purple shadows of colossal palaces and terraced ziggurats that rose dizzily up and into the red glow of the setting sun. Slender, shapely women with olive hued bodies peered through transparent veils that were not intended to conceal their scarlet lips and kohl darkened eyelids.

The natives halted. Their guttural murmuring subsided; but Glenn Farrell had heard enough to know that the language which they spoke was similar to Arabic in the way that the English of Chaucer’s time resembles the language of our day. Without turning to his two companions, he said, in a low voice that was unsteady with wonder, “Talk to their leader, Ismeddin.”

The old, white bearded Arab who had followed Farrell from Mekinez to Boukhara advanced and greeted the stern faced amir who had stepped from the silent but ever thickening throng of natives. They were armed with curved scimitars; but a few carried silver mounted, long barreled jezails, and flintlock pistols—weapons which they must have bought from wandering Bedouins who had ventured into the terrific Rub’ al-Khali.

Farrell knew that Ismeddin’s parley would decide the fate of the party. He turned to his friend, Colonel Pierre d’Artois, on leave from the French Air Service to pilot Farrell’s plane to Africa.

“If we have to take it on the run, do you think you can lift her out of this plaza and clear of the walls?”

The grim faced old soldier shrugged, twisted his waxed moustache to a finer point and said, “Mondieu! Trying is the only way to find out. Though if that girl near the chief doesn’t quit eyeing you that way, mon ami, there will be some of that hell popping.”

Farrell followed d’Artois’ glance. Her faintly aquiline face was delicate as a Persian miniature, and his pulse quickened as he caught the inviting gaze of dark eyes that smouldered behind the transparent veil which was held in place by disc-headed pins thrust like monstrous marigolds into her black hair. Farrell no longer tried to follow Ismeddin’s sonorous Arabic. He caught his breath, and his gray eyes narrowed as he returned the intent appraisal of the slender Sabean girl whose graciously curved body and shapely legs gleamed golden-ivory through her sun-pierced gown. And then the corners of her amorous mouth lifted in the shadow of a smile.

“Let her look, Pierre,” whispered Farrell. “You can pilot that crate the rest of the way to Djibuti and then sell the damn thing for scrap. I’m staying here to learn the language a bit better.”

“Some of those nuts, mon ami!” growled the Frenchman. “You young fool, you’ll probably end up by being flayed alive and crucified. Anybody that’s done as much exploring as you have ought to know better than to look at native women—”

“Nuts yourself, Pierre!” countered Farrell. “When anybody that’s done as much exploring as I have gets cold-calked by an eyeful like that, something’s got to be done about it. That girl’s going with us to Djibuti.”

“Imbécile!” grumbled the Frenchman. “Talk Arabic to match your clothes. That’s our only hope of getting out of here with whole hides. Particularly with your damned romantic stupidity!”

And then Ismeddin returned from the parley and announced, “The Amir welcomes you. These people worship the sun and stars, like they did in the days of Queen Balkis; so I told him that you came to pray at the shrine of the moon goddess, and that beside being able to fly like a bird, you can raise the dead, and—”

“You would!” growled Farrell. “And now there will be the devil to pay—if anyone dies here—”

“No wonder she looked at you that way,” interpolated d’Artois. “But when do we eat and where do we camp?”

“As I was about to say, ya Bimbashi,” resumed the old Arab, “we will be quartered in one of these ruined palaces. And tonight we will witness the ceremonies at the temple of the moon. This way, sidi. That tall fellow will show us to our quarters. And we will leave, inshallah, before there is any occasion to raise the dead.”

“Like hell we will,” muttered Farrell as he followed his guide. “You couldn’t have doped out a better way of crabbing the act!” Then catching a parting glimpse of the large-eyed girl with the golden hair pins and noting the amorous curves of her slender body silhouetted by horizontal rays that glared through an archway, he added, “But miracles seem to be in order in this man’s town.”

Grilled lamb, flat cakes of bread, and water from the spring that made Madinat-ash-Shams a verdant spot in the blistering southern desert was presently served to Farrell and his companions as they were breaking out their kits in the vast ruin which darkness had suddenly enveloped. The menace and lurking mystery of antiquity oppressed Farrell; and the camel dung fire over which Ismeddin was brewing coffee cast a glow that seemed to animate the gigantic, solemn faces sculptured on the masonry. He shivered, and not from the evening chill that had followed sunset. Then he pictured again the subtle invitation that had lurked on the lips of that Sabean girl and heard in his fancy the tinkle of her golden anklets.

D’Artois’ face became grave as he sensed the significance of Farrell’s sudden change of expression.

“I’ll watch here,” he said, “so I’ll be on hand to warm up the motor at the first sign of rioting.”

“Hell, Pierre,” chuckled Farrell. “I won’t look for her tonight. They don’t allow ladies at the prayer meeting.”

He gathered his flowing djellab about him and followed Ismeddin up the broad avenue to the loftiest of the ziggurats, or tower-temples erected centuries ago by the worshippers of the heavenly bodies. He heard the mutter of drums and the insinuating whine of stringed instruments, and the heart shaking clang of great brazen gongs.

“It is insane…this idea of making a date with the granddaughter of the Queen of Sheba…”

Smoking torches illuminated the broad stairs that led to the ziggurat on the first terrace of which thronged the last of the Sabeans who had once ruled all of Arabia. Farrell felt cold chills race up and down his spine as the chanting and drumming hammered into his very soul; and something told him that the Sabeans were a cruel and lustful race to make drums and cymbals whisper such things to a man’s heart.

Farrell saw curtains slowly parting to reveal the shrine, and forgot all but the sinister spectacle before him. He barely understood the words of the clean shaven, chanting priests ranged beside the altar, a great square block of carved basalt; but the knife that gleamed in the hand of one who whetted the frosty steel needed no interpretation. They were about to offer a sacrifice. The victim was a young, dark haired girl who had been stripped of all but her dazzling beauty, and a broad, sapphire encrusted girdle about her slender waist. Her eyes were closed, and her head was inclined. She sat cross-legged, and with her arms crossed on her breast. For an instant Farrell tried to assure himself that that was no living woman, but a tinted statue, the goddess of the shrine. He relaxed, exhaled a sighing breath, then froze anew as he noted that she was breathing. She was unbound; and Farrell knew that she must have been drugged so that neither struggle nor change of expression would detract from her ceremonial posture.

The gongs now clanged deafeningly, drowning the chant of the priests and the chilling snick-snick of the sacrificial knife. Farrell glanced about, and saw row upon row of fanatic faces, wolfishly gleaming eyes, tall, muscular men enthralled by the blood lust that made the very atmosphere a corrosive poison. To interfere would be suicide. He would be torn to pieces by the frenzied worshippers. Those amiable Sabeans were drunk with the sadistic thrill of waiting for bare steel to sink into warm flesh…

The silver-mitred priest had now taken the knife. Farrell’s drawn face was pale. His brain exploded in a blaze of wrath. He reached for his pistol.

A hand snatched his wrist just as his groping fingers told him that his holster was empty; and then Ismeddin’s voice hissed in his ear, “I took it—stand fast—this is no business of yours—”

Ismeddin’s grip restrained Farrell and restored his sanity. But before he could lower his eyes, or turn his head, he caught the flicker of steel, saw the red tide gush in the wake of the retracted knife, and horribly redden the still crossed hands, drench that shapely golden body and mask the sapphires of the girdle at her waist. His brain reeled, his stomach revolted; and his wrath died in the sickeningly lurching pit of his stomach.

Ismeddin whispered, “There will be no more this evening. The other two will follow—one tomorrow night—and the night after—”

“The other two!” Farrell’s horrified glance swept the shrine. In alcoves at either side of the altar he saw what he had not previously observed; two girls arrayed like the one whose blood the priests were collecting in golden bowls and sprinkling on the howling, frenzied worshippers who had surged toward the altar. By the torch glow he recognized the one at the left; it was she whose amorous lips had smiled at him through her transparent veil only a few hours earlier.

“Get out before the accursed of Allah see you and read your mind,” urged Ismeddin. “She is safe enough tonight.”

Farrell staggered down the broad steps of the ziggurat and into the darkness; but that cool gloom was hideous with the image that mocked him from every shadow. And as he strode down the wide avenue toward the plaza, he heard Ismeddin say, “One tonight, one tomorrow night, and the third just as the new moon rises above the lip of the valley. And here is your pistol. Haste is of Satan. You could not save the first. But you may yet have a chance to find the—the one you were seeking.”

They were chanting again in the ziggurat. The cries of blood lust had become a hymn of praise to the Sabean goddess of the moon.

D’Artois said nothing when he saw Farrell’s tense, pale face and the murderous light in his eyes.

“Better sleep,” said Ismeddin, indicating the rugs spread out on the paved floor. “I will take the first watch of the night.”

Even after silence had crept over that accursed city, the mutter of bloodthirsty drums still rang in Farrell’s ears, and that red tide still flowed before his eyes; but finally his senses were dulled by a troubled drowsiness that was more tiring than wakefulness.

He awoke with a start. Someone was kneeling at his side, and plucking him by the shoulder. A woman whispered in that language which was first cousin to Arabic. The hand that gripped him was withered as the voice that said, “She is waiting for you. She dies tomorrow night if you do not save her.”

Farrell was on his feet in an instant. Ready for trouble, he had slept full pack, and thus lost no time in dressing. As he followed the stooped, shrivelled old woman, he caught a glimpse of Ismeddin’s tall figure lurking in the shadow of the silvery fuselage of the plane.

The old woman led the way down a narrow alley between two of the smaller buildings that faced the plaza; and presently Farrell was lost in the ribbon of blackness that wound in and out among houses that were old when Queen Balkis, young and beautiful as the one they had sacrificed to the lunar goddess, had confounded King Solomon with her riddles and had herself been ensnared by a shrewd bargain that could only be kept by giving herself for a night to that wily monarch whose wisdom she admired more than his patriarchal beard. Lucky Solomon…

Farrell sensed that this guide was a servant of the girl whose eyes had invited him at sunset. He wondered why she was taking him past the ziggurat; but he followed until she finally halted at a low doorway that pierced a massive wall of masonry. There, beckoning for silence, she caught his hand and drew him into the blackness of a narrow, tortuous passageway, at the end of which she pushed him ahead of her and across the threshold of an open door. Before he could turn, the door closed against him and he heard the soft, ominous metallic sound of a bolt sliding home.

“What a sap!” he muttered. “Trapped by an old hag.”

Farrell drew his pistol as he cleared the pilaster that buttressed the wall. Then he returned the weapon. He was looking through a low archway into a brown, dismal vault which was illuminated by a single taper. A girl was lying face down on a couch of rugs and cushions spread on the mosaic floor. Her dark hair was unbound, and its blue black length enveloped her to her hips. Her face was buried in her arms, and she was softly sobbing to the silence. Her slender ankles were fettered, and her chains were attached to heavy eye-bolts anchored in the masonry of the wall; but her arms were free.

Though Farrell could not see her face, the gracious contour of her waist and the luxurious curve of her slender hips and shapely legs identified her beyond question. She sensed his presence, and sat erect. The misery faded from her dark, wide eyes. Her pomegranate-hued lips smiled; and then she remembered that she was unclad except for the broad, jeweled cincture about her waist. One hand drew her rippling hair about her, but thick as it was, it could scarcely conceal from Farrell’s beauty-dazzled eyes the magnolia blossom contour of her firm, ivory-smooth breasts and the lovely roundness of her thighs.

“Don’t bother,” said Farrell in Arabic, as he finally found his voice. “I won’t look lower than your shoulders…”

“I’m sure you’ve not skipped anything—so another glimpse—” She laughed softly and brushed away a tear that glistened on her long lashes; and then the smouldering darkness of her eyes again became troubled pools of misery. As Farrell knelt on the tiles, her arm twined about him and drew him to the couch of silken rugs. He felt the clinging curves of her warm body and inhaled the dizzying sweetness of the attar which perfumed her lustrous hair; and for a moment Farrell forgot the deadly peril of the situation, and the menace that lurked in that lost city. But before he could find her lips, she shuddered, and whispered as though she feared that the very walls might hear, “Were you there—did you see—”

“God, yes!” Farrell shivered from the chill that even her intoxicating presence could not dispel. He snatched the chain that secured her, wrathfully tugged against its stubborn, hand forged links, then shook his head. “If I’d only brought a chisel from the tool kit—”

As he turned to rise, she caught his arm and drew him back, saying, “No. You can’t cut that chain. It would make too much noise. And if you went and returned, someone might see you. And then—oh, there’d not be a chance…”

Her arms twined about him, and fresh tears moistened the folds of his djellab.

“Damn it! Then how will I get you away—”

“You can’t,” she sobbed. “It’s impossible. They’re watching. I don’t know how my old nurse ever slipped you in here… You must leave tonight before they—”

“Wait a minute!” interrupted Farrell. “Did you send for me to tell me to leave before the natives mobbed us?”

She drew her head from his shoulder and for a long moment regarded him. Her smouldering eyes and half parted, amorous lips told him why he had been summoned; and the deep, sighing inhalation of breath, raising her faultless breasts through her streaming hair left no doubt. Terror had departed from her eyes, and passion burned in their dark depths as she sank back among the cushions and with outreaching, inviting arms drew Farrell toward her…

Her pomegranate blossom lips were sultry as breath of the desert, and her quivering, supple young body was a multitude of questing, devouring flames that seemed to envelope Farrell as her arms closed on him with a possessive fierceness that forced from him the breath that she drank from his lips…and neither heard the ironic, mocking note of the ankle chains that tinkled with every movement…

Time had been lost in that perfumed darkness that was broken only by the now faintly flickering taper…but her inarticulate murmur at last found words as she caught her breath.

“God…who are you anyway…” Farrell hoarsely muttered, stirring as he finally became aware once more of the silken rugs beneath him. He understood, now, why in the face of death she had sent her faithful slave to bring him to her arms, and perhaps to a savage doom. And though slaked passion made way for the lurking of peril, Farrell understood, and was glad; for if she must die, she would now die a woman, and not a girl who had never lived…

“I’m Makeda,” she murmured. Desire had for the moment left her eyes, yet her smile was a caress. But Farrell was perplexed by the triumph that glowed from her lovely face. He leaped to his feet, cursing his folly in having succumbed to his desire and thus robbed him of a chance to go to the plane and get tools that might sever her chains. But Makeda drew him back.

“You don’t understand,” she continued. “Now I won’t die on the altar. Only virgins are eligible for sacrifice to the moon goddess.”

She sighed luxuriously and shrugged aside a long black tress that twined over her left breast. Farrell’s brain was again a whirling confusion. He frowned, seeking to collect his thoughts; but his eyes persistently strayed to that perfect left breast—perfection heightened by a star shaped, black mole.

“But how,” he finally demanded, “will the priests know you’re no longer a virgin? If you told them, they’d just think it a trick to escape—”

Her eyes clouded, and then Makeda answered, “Why…the same way anyone else would. That’s part of the ritual. But now they’ll merely keep me locked up in the temple. They won’t throw my blood to the crowd.”

Farrell’s eyes blazed wrathfully. To think of that incredible girl going from his arms to one of those blood drinking priests seemed worse than watching her face the sacrificial knife. He tore and tugged and struggled with her chains until his hands were raw; and then, abandoning his vain fight, he said, “I’m going to cut you loose. I’m coming right back—”

He ignored her protests. He shouldered the door before he remembered that it had been barred. But it yielded to his touch; and presently Farrell was slinking through a maze of bewildering passageways. The stars, however, gave him his general direction; and then as he emerged in a wider alley, he noted the familiar bulk of the ruined palace that overshadowed the plaza. He hastened toward his landmark, and in a few moments he saw the glistening wings of the trimotored plane.

Ismeddin, appearing suddenly from behind the colossal stump of a shattered column, recognized Farrell and turned to walk his post; but when he saw him enter the plane, and presently emerge with a hammer and chisel, he seized his arm and said, “Don’t go back. It’s—”

“Hell!” snapped Farrell, jerking clear. “I know what I’m doing.”

But the old Arab shook his head. “I talked to that old woman. Do you suppose she sneaked by without my seeing her? She told me all about it. You can’t get back into the house. You’re lucky to have gone as far as you did. Listen—”

Farrell cocked a sharp ear at the silence. He heard muffled hoofbeats, and the subdued ring of steel. Then he noted that the false dawn was breaking, and that the true dawn would soon follow. In the deceptive grayish murk of the street from which he had entered the plaza he saw the spectral bulk of a tall man on horse; and a second followed him into a side street.

“Can’t make it, sidi,” said Ismeddin as a curse of exasperation rumbled deep in Farrell’s throat. “Without a guide, how could you pick the right doorway, or find her room?”

Ismeddin was right. Farrell turned and without a word entered the hall where d’Artois was sleeping; but when the sun flamed up over the sombre walls of Madinat-ash-Shams, he was still groping for some device to extricate Makeda from the grip of the priests.

* * * *

The old Arab, seeing Farrell gloomily engrossed with the morning coffee, read his thought, and said, “It is not absolutely impossible. Get out the medicine chest and sit here in the plaza to bandage the wounded and give pills to the sick. That will make you popular here. And that is what you need, until—”

And then Ismeddin began talking about the weather; nor could Farrell’s insistence make the old fellow reveal his plan.

And thus from necessity he followed Ismeddin to the further edge of the plaza, where he laid out his first aid kit and the simple drugs he had taken from the medicine chest of the plane. Then, as the Sabeans clustered about, the old darwish proved himself a master juggler. He picked small trinkets and coins from the air, and from crevices in the paving, flinging them to the fascinated spectators; and all the while he chanted his patter:

“The learned doctor! The healer of the sick! The mender of the broken! He sets aright whom the gods have afflicted!”

As Farrell painted his patients with iodine, gave them powerful purgatives, and packed decayed teeth with oil of cloves, the old darwish vanished as though he himself had been palmed by a juggler. And late that afternoon, while Farrell was lancing and cauterizing a snake bite, Ismeddin was engaged in a way that would have made his chief’s eyes widen perceptibly.

At sunset Farrell was accompanied to his quarters by three porters loaded down with gifts presented by grateful patients. Ismeddin was awaiting his return; and as he noted the display of food, trinkets, and clothing heaped on the floor, he grinned and said, “This will get you a place of honor at the ritual of sacrifice tonight.”

“Why the hell should I attend that butchery?” growled Farrell. “Makeda told me—”

The darwish grinned and stroked his beard.

“Wallah! And so did the old woman, this afternoon. For reasons best known yourself, Makeda is not eligible to die on the altar. But you miss the point. You must attend the ceremonies. You are chief of the party, and your absence would not only be discourteous, but would arouse suspicion.

“In the meanwhile, I will be arranging things. Perhaps I can get Makeda out of her cell while everyone’s attention is occupied with the orgy at the temple.”

“Nothing doing!” snapped Farrell. “I’m going with you.”

But the darwish shook his head.

“Better do as I say. I can work more quietly alone. Take your pistols with you, so if that blood drunken crowd should get wild, you can hold your own. And don’t forget to wear a scimitar. But keep your head, and on your life, don’t interfere with the butchery—it is none of your affair.

“And you, my lord bimbashi,” he concluded, turning to d’Artois, “be ready to leave in a hurry.”

So saying, Ismeddin stalked to the archway, and vanished in the shadows before Farrell could detain him.

“I smell trouble,” muttered Farrell. “I don’t like this being split up.”

He grasped d’Artois’ hand, then strode to the plaza.

The savage drums were rumbling, and as he walked up the broad avenue toward the ziggurat, the shivering clang of brazen gongs chilled Farrell’s blood. He scarcely felt the paving beneath his feet. He shuddered at the thought of being forced to witness a repetition of the past night’s savagery; and then his pulse raced maddeningly as he remembered Makeda’s loveliness shrouded only by her twining black hair. If his presence would lull suspicion, and give Ismeddin a free hand in liberating Makeda from the priests who were going to keep her as a temple slave, Farrell could swallow his qualms.

He descended the broad stairs and found the terrace ablaze with smoking torches. He saluted the Amir who sat at the right, surrounded by his guard. Then Farrell worked his way to the front of the group at the left, close to the curtains of the shrine. As he waited for the parting of the veil, he glanced about, and up to the second stage of the terraced tower. There he saw a vague, whitish splotch in the darkness; and as he wondered at that lurking figure, it vanished behind the parapet that guarded the dizzy drop to the lower terrace. That shrouded shape might be Ismeddin, still seeking Makeda. Then the pipes and stringed instruments tore Farrell’s nerves to shreds. He steeled himself to endure the impending orgy.

A warning clang of bronze told Farrell that the curtains of the shrine would part; and despite himself, his gaze was drawn to the altar. As before, a girl sat on the sacrificial block: nude, save for the jeweled girdle, arms crossed on her breast, and her head inclined. She awaited doom in drugged tranquility, and the tall priest stood by to receive the fatal knife from the hands of the acolyte who was whetting it with deliberate, ceremonial gestures.

The chanting ceased. The silence was broken only by a restless stirring, and the gasp of sharply drawn breath. Farrell’s blood froze in his veins, and horror paralyzed him. It was Makeda who was awaiting the knife. Makeda, whose sultry kisses still tingled on his lips. Makeda, whose amorous frenzy had left his throat scarred and bruised. She had failed to save herself from the altar. Someone had misled Ismeddin.

“God…” he muttered. The paving beneath his feet seemed to surge and billow, and his brain had become a blazing frenzy of blind despair. The knife was ready, gleaming in the high priest’s hand.

Like the blood drunken Sabeans, Farrell’s eyes stared in fascination at the glistening steel. The priest’s sonorous voice rolled like the rumble of doom. Yet none knew whose doom it foretold; not even Farrell, for though he moved with panther swiftness, it was as in a hideous, incredible dream.

As the great gong thundered, Farrell’s revolver cleared its holster. The brazen clang muffled the blast of the .45. The priest pitched backward in a heap beside the altar; and for a frozen instant no one but Farrell moved. The hypnotic spell of the interrupted blood ritual was not broken until the bewildered participants saw him bound forward, revolver in hand.

The priests fled before Farrell’s insane charge; but the amazed Sabeans sensed his purpose. They surged forward in a yelling, steel armed wave.

Farrell whirled at the altar. For a moment the deadly chatter of his revolvers held the blood maddened mob at bay. They recoiled, riddled by the murderous hail of lead. And then the hammers clicked on empty chambers.

All in a crowded instant. Then he seized the drugged beauty and bounded forward, his ceremonial scimitar flashing in whistling arcs as the first of the mob closed in. Steel struck sparks from steel, and Farrell’s blade dripped red; but as he cleared the threshold of the shrine, a crescent of swords had him hemmed in. Encumbered by his lovely burden, Farrell had not been able to move fast enough to reach the stairs before his retreat was cut off. He backed into an angle to make his final stand. They saw no need for haste; and they knew the peril of crowding a man who had no chance. He would kill a dozen of them before they overwhelmed him, and no one wanted to be first.

An angry voice from the rear urged them forward, but the charge was checked before it started. Something dropped from the parapet overhead, and burst into searing, blue white radiance that overwhelmed the wan torchlight, and dazzled the eyes that were fixed on Farrell.

The distraction was no more than momentary; but in the face of a hedge of swords, that moment seemed a lifetime. Though blinded by that blistering glare, Farrell had the advantage. Slashing blindly, he bounded along the balustrade and to the head of the stairs. He knew that the choking, dense white fumes enveloped the mob and would for another instant screen his flight. And as he took the stairs three at a leap, he knew what had given him his chance: a landing flare Ismeddin had taken from the plane.

Savage yells and deep voiced commands roared behind him; steel clanged, and the brazen gong thundered to urge the Sabeans to the pursuit as their eyes recovered from the incandescent blaze; but Farrell, as he dashed down the avenue, heard the drumming of the motors, and knew d’Artois was warming up. Farrell was now tearing across the plaza. He heard the clatter of hoofs, the roar of jezails and flint lock pistols, and the whistle of lead.

One final effort. The horsemen were on his heels. Farrell tossed his burden ahead of him and plunged headlong into the cabin after her. And then the roar of the motors drowned the clamor. The plane rushed headlong across the great square and straight at the dizzily towering walls. Then it zoomed upward at a ruinous angle; but the powerful engines made it, and in another moment, d’Artois flattened out.

“Holy smoke!” sighed Farrell. And then, raising his voice: “Ismeddin! Break out some brandy.”

But Ismeddin had stepped into the pilot’s compartment. Farrell turned toward the girl he had stolen from the sacrificial altar. She was still unconscious, and beautiful as a sleeping goddess, despite the blood that had dripped on her slender body from a dozen grazing cuts which seamed Farrell’s head and ribs.

And then Farrell’s blood froze. He now saw what he had not noted in the hell glare of smoking torches: it was not Makeda he had carried through a wall of blades.

“Good God!” he muttered. There was no more than a mocking similarity. He swept aside the long strand of dark hair that curled over her shoulder and caressed her left breast. He knew then that she could not be Makeda, for there was no star shaped mole on the magnolia blossom perfection.

It was too late to return. Triumph was bitter as the dust and blood on his lips. The girl on the lounge was stirring. The effect of the drug was wearing off. She sat up and regarded him with wonder widened, dark eyes…

Farrell heard a click behind him. And for the second time within a few moments he stood dazed and gaping. A smiling girl stood framed in the doorway that opened into the pilot’s compartment, and behind her was white-bearded Ismeddin.

“Well, for the love of Mike!” Farrell finally blurted out. “How—why—what the devil—”

The girl was Makeda—Makeda as she had been that mad, amorous hour in that sombre vault, except that the splendor of her body smiled warmly through a gown of transparent gauze.

Her arms closed about Farrell, and her lips stopped his queries. Finally she said, “Forgive me. But I had to do it. It was my cousin who was to die on the altar tonight. We resemble each other, and I didn’t think you’d notice the difference by night. So I put on those chains and sent for you—to—well, give you a reason for saving me—I mean, her.”

“You mean you slipped into the plane while I was being damn near chopped to little pieces—for a total stranger?”

Makeda smiled and shrugged. “I’m awfully fond of my cousin. And that old fellow said you could raise the dead, so I knew that saving her would be simple enough…”

“Billahi!” interposed Ismeddin, “I didn’t know that until the old slave woman told me, the last minute. And I thought the flare would be better than—”

“It was. And now you and Makeda’s cousin go forward and talk to Pierre. And break out something or other she can use to cover the points of interest. I don’t want Pierre to get eye strain and crack us up in the middle of this desert.

“Now, get the hell out, the both of you. I’m going to be busy studying astronomy for some time to come.”

“Astronomy?” wondered the old Arab as he wrapped a blanket around Makeda’s cousin. Then he winked, grinned, and added, “Sidi, that’s a new name for—”

“Get out or I’ll break your head!” threatened Farrell as he snapped out the cabin lights. “I was referring to a star-shaped mole, which is something you’d not understand.”

And then Makeda’s arms closed about Farrell and her questing lips sought his in the darkness.

“And so you did notice that mole?” she finally murmured, as she sighed contentedly and untwined her arms. “I was rather worried…you see, I thought you’d be terribly angry, and I just dreaded coming in here to face you…but I was afraid you might make a perfectly terrible mistake—she looks so much like me…”