"Light, here!" he commanded. Ferrara swung a lamp, by its chain, into the recess. They saw a low, square opening in the wall of dull, gleaming metal. "A passage, eh?" the Master ejaculated. "Maybe a _cul-de-sac_," she answered. "But--there's no telling--it may lead somewhere." "By Allah! Men! Here--all of you!" The Master's voice rang imperatively. They all came trooping with naked or slippered feet that slid in the wet redness of the floor. Broken exclamations sounded. Seizing the lamp, the Master thrust it into the opening, which measured no more than four feet high by three wide. The light smokily illuminated about three yards of this narrow passage. Then a sharp turn to the right concealed all else. Whither this runway might lead, to what peril or what trap it might conduct them, none could tell. Very strongly it reminded the Master of the gallery in the Great Pyramid of Gizeh, which he had seen twelve years before--the gallery which in ancient days had served as a death-trap for treasure-seekers. That gallery, he remembered, had contained a cleverly hidden stone in its floor which once on a time had precipitated pilferers down a vertical shaft more than a hundred feet, to death, in the bowels of that huge, terrifying mausoleum. Was this passage of similar purpose and design? In all probability, yes. Oriental ways run parallel in all the lands of the East. Nevertheless, the passage offered a means of escaping from the crypt. And there, with the dead Maghrabi mudirs, the Legionaries could not stay. In a few minutes now, at most, the men of Jannati Shahr would be upon them. "Faith, what the devil now?" exclaimed Bohannan, now seeming quite rational, as he peered into the cramped corridor. "Where to Hell does this lead?" "Just where you've said, to Hell, it's far more than likely," the Master retorted. "Come, men, into it! Follow me!" He stooped, lamp in one hand, simitar in the other, and in a most cramped posture entered the passage. After him came Leclair, the woman, Bohannan, and the others. The air hung close and heavy. The oppression of that stooping position, the lamp-smoke, the unusual strain on the muscles, the realization of a whole world of gold above and all about them, seemed to strangle and enervate them. But steadily they kept on and on. The turning of the passage revealed a long, descending incline, that sloped down at an angle of perhaps thirty degrees. A marked rise in temperature grew noticeable. What might that mean? None could imagine, but not one even thought of turning back. The walls and floor in this straight, descending passage were now no longer smooth, arabesqued, polished. To the contrary, they showed a rough surface, on which the marks of the chisel could be plainly seen as it had shorn away the yielding metal in great gouges. Moreover, streaks of black granite now began to appear; and these, as the Legionaries advanced, became ever wider until at last the stone predominated.