They stumbled, fought, fell into the crypt.
The heavy door, swung by panting, sweating men--while others fired through the narrowing aperture--groaned shut on massive hinges.
As the space narrowed, frenzy broke loose.

Arabs and Maghrabis crawled and struggled over bodies, flung themselves to sure immolation in the doorway.

As fast as they fell, the Legionaries dragged them inside.
The place became an infernal shambles, slippery, crimson, unreal with horror.
For one fate-heavy moment, the tides of war hung even.

Furiously the remaining Legionaries toiled with straining muscles, swelling veins, panting lungs, to force the door shut, against the shrieking, frenzied drive of Moslem fanatics lashed into fury by the _thar_, the feud of blood.
"Captain Alden" turned the tide.

She snatched down one of the copper lamps that hung by chains from the dim ceiling of the treasure-crypt.
Over the heads of the Legionaries she flung blazing sandal-oil out upon the white-robed jam of madmen.
The flaming oil flared up along those thin, white robes.