"It's quite immaterial, after all," said he. "I led you into this. And now it's very nearly a case of _sauve qui peut_. The sooner your pockets are full, to the extreme limit, the sooner something like reason will return to you. Jewels being of interest to a man at death's door--it's quite characteristic of you, Bohannan. Help yourself!" "Thanks, I will!" Bohannan flung up at him, blood-drabbled face pale and drawn by the flaring lamplight. "A _multi_-millionaire! Death? I should worry! Help myself? Faith, I just will, that!" "Anyone else, here, feel so disposed?" the Master inquired. "If so, get it over and done with. We've got fighting ahead, and we'd better quench whatever thirst there is for wealth, first." No one made any move. Only Bohannan's mind had been unsettled by the hoard, to the extent of wanting to possess it. Now that death loomed, empty pockets were as good, to all the rest, as any other sort. "You're all a pack of damned fools!" Bohannan sneered. "You could die richer than Rockefeller, every man-jack of you, and you--you don't want to! Sure, it's _you_ that's mad, not me!" No one answered. They all stood peering down at him, their faces tense, wounded, dirty; their eyes gleaming strangely; the shadow of Azraël's wing already enfolding them. Then, a few detached themselves from the little group and wandered off into the gloom, away from the pits. Leclair muttered: "I prefer loading my automatic, to loading my pockets! Odd, the major is, eh? Ah well, _à chacun sa chimère!_" "Everybody's weapons fully loaded?" the Master demanded. "Be sure they are! And don't forget the mercy-bullets, men. These Arabs are rather ingenious in their tortures. They make a specialty of crucifying unbelievers--upside down. That sort of thing won't do, for us not for fighting-men of the Legion!" Bohannan, laughing, stood up. Every pocket was a-bulge with incalculable wealth. "Now I'm satisfied," he remarked in more rational tones. "I reckon I must be worth more money, as I stand here, than any human being that ever lived. You're looking at the richest man in the world, gentlemen! And I'm going to die, the richest. If that's not some distinction, what is? For a man that was bone-poor, fifteen minutes ago! Now, sir--" A sudden cry interrupted him. That cry came from "Captain Alden." "Here! Look here!" "What is it?" demanded the Master. He started toward her, while outside the door sounded dull commands, as if the Arabs-now organized to effective work-were already preparing to blow open the last barrier between them and their victims. "What now?" the Master repeated, striding toward her. "_See! See here!_" CHAPTER XLVII A WAY OUT? The woman stood pointing into a black recess at the far end of the crypt. All that the Master could discern there, at first, was a darkness even greater than that which shrouded the corners of the vault.