“Thou hast been in that secret city, Rrisa?”

“Once, Master.  The wonderful sight still remaineth in mine eyes.”

“And, seeing the Iron Mountains again, thou couldst guide us thither?”

“Allah forbid!  That is among the black deeds, Master!  ’The grave is darkness and good deeds are its lamps; but for the betrayer, there shall be no light!’ Wallah, Effendi! Do not make me your guide!”

“I have not said I intended to do so, Rrisa.  I merely asked thee if thou couldst!” The Master’s voice was silken, fine, penetrant.  “Well, Rrisa, tell me if thou couldst!”

“Yea, Master. Ya gharati! (O my calamity!) It is true I could.”  The words issued from his unwilling throat as if torn out by main force.  “But I earnestly beg of you, my sheik, do not make me do this thing!”

“Rrisa, if I command, thou must obey me!  ’There is only one thing can ever loose the bonds I have knotted about thee.”

“And that is certainty (death), Master?”

“That is certainty!  But this, to the oath-breaker and the abuser of the salt, means a place among the mujrim (sinful).  It means Jehannum, and an unhappy couch shall it be!”

Rrisa’s face grew even more drawn and lined.  A trembling had possessed his whole body.

“Master, I obey!” he made submission, then stood waiting with downcast eyes of suffering.

“It is well,” said the chief, rising.  He stood for a moment peering at Rrisa, while the hum and roar of the great air-liner’s mechanism, the dip and sway of its vast body through the upper air, seemed to add a kind of oppressive solemnity to the tense situation.  To the cabin wall the Master turned.  There hung a large-scale map of the Arabian Peninsula.  He laid a hand on the vast, blank interior, and nodded for Rrisa to approach.

“Listen, thou,” said he.  “Thy knowledge is sufficient.  Thou dost understand the interpretation of maps, and canst read latitude and longitude.  Mark here the place of the Hidden City!”

“Of the Bara Jannati Shahr, Master?  Ah no, no!”

“So then, that is its name?” the chief demanded, smiling.

“No, M’alme.  Thou dost know the Arabic.  Thou dost understand this means only, in thy tongue, the Very Heavenly City.”

“True.  Well, let it pass.  Very Heavenly City it shall be, till the real name becomes known.  Come now, mark the place of the Hidden City and mark it truly, or the greatest of sins will lie upon thy soul!”

The Arab advanced a brown, quivering hand.

“Give me a pencil, Master, and I obey!” he answered, in a voice hardly audible.

CHAPTER XXXIV

THE INNER SECRET OF ISLAM

The chief handed him a pencil.  Rrisa intelligently studied the map for nearly two minutes, then raised his hand and made a dot a few miles north-east of the intersection of fifty degrees east and twenty degrees north.  The Master’s eye was not slow to note that the designated location formed one point of a perfect equilateral triangle, the other points of which were Bab el Mandeb on the south and Mecca on the north.