Page:Treasure of the mosque.djvu/13

Rh hiding place of the jewels would not be tampered with during his absence.

“Don’t you worry about me, Khan,” he nodded. “I can take care of myself. I’ve been in lots of scraps before this.”

But when Lambert reached the street he realized that he had never been in an exactly similar scrap. The air seemed burdened with an ominous tenseness. Grim-visaged men were collecting in groups and from beneath their ﬂowing robes was the signiﬁcant glint of steel. On sharply turning a comer Lambert nearly collided with a lean camel. Perched on the camel’s back was a gaunt ﬁgure, topped by an immense green turban. With outstretched arms he was summoning the Faithful to avenging work.

“Deen! Deen! Futteh Mohammed!” went up that cry which seems to make the earth shiver. “Come, Brothers, come! The hour! The sword!”

Lambert moved briskly out of the way, but he could not withhold a note of admiration.

“Great Scot!” he ejaculated. “What a chance for a moving-picture-show man!”

As Lambert hastened on toward the palace a plan was developing in his mind. He was not particularly concerned over the religious feud between the Mohammedans and Hindus, or if the piglet met his fate in a sharp and sudden manner, but from the look of things the life of a girl who had unwittingly sealed his lips was at stake. Fortunately he seemed to hold the trump card of the whole situation in the temporary possession of the late pious king’s jewels, but unfortunately he did not see how he could save the girl without also helping the piglet to escape punishment. He could only