The waiting was not long. Through the whole of the morning of the third, fugitive soldiers continued to pour in from the mountains, bringing word of the valiant, the desperate bravery of Viradha in his retreat, and of the overwhelming force of the invaders. Oman sat in the great audience hall, questioning every soldier that came in, ordering, thinking, planning, till, about one o’clock in the afternoon, there came to his ears the sounds of a great, confused clamor:—the distant battle-din that proclaimed the arrival of the Rajah and his army. Then, had any one been there to watch, he might have thought that the Saint of Mandu had gone suddenly mad. A spirit of fury had, indeed, rushed upon Oman. He ran out of the palace into the courtyard, where, by his command, a horse was waiting for him. He sprang upon it. All the man, all the one-time Asra bravery of Fidá, was seething in his blood, beating in his brain. From a staring slave-boy he seized a shield and spear, but waited for no armor. Clad in his accustomed white garments, a white turban on his head, and, for his one ornament, the great ruby hung about his neck, he started away, at full gallop, down the road toward the causeway. As he advanced, the sounds grew nearer: the noise more hideous. And above it all, from time to time, like a sentence of doom and death, came the strange accents of that strangest of all battle-cries: “_La-ilaha-il-lal-laha!_” which, twisted, means: “There is no God but God.” CHAPTER XVII THE SIGN OF THE RUBY The galloping horse, with its white rider, dashed round the curve in the road that opened upon the great stone causeway; and Oman perceived that he was none too soon. It was upon that narrow bridge that the long, horrible retreat of the young Rajah of Mandu had reached its climax. Here he made his last stand against the invincible Prophet-horde. The scene on the causeway was indescribable. Oman had one moment’s survey of it: one moment, during which all his strength, all the fury of race and loyalty that were in him, rushed into his two arms, into his brain, into his eyes. Then, without pause, he was carried down into the writhing, struggling mass. The plan of defence prepared over night for Viradha’s assistance had come to naught. The two armies had fought their way, hand to hand, all down the rocky defile that led to the plateau; and they reached the causeway in an inseparable mass. It had taken the whole morning for the Moslems to force the defenders from the entrance of the pass, two miles above, to the bridge. The men of Mandu, knowing well the consequence of defeat, had fought as never men fought before; and now, on the threshold of their homes, they made the supreme effort. The retreat was over. The fight on the causeway was the death struggle. When it ended, there would be no more resistance to the followers of Mohammed.