Page:The Plutocrat (1927).pdf/502

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

but twenty impassioned brown fingers on his arm made him unable to withdraw it. Then a door of the closed interior was thrown open with a violence damaging to the indignant Arabs upon the running-board, and a big, red-faced, bareheaded man leaped out of the car and roared.

His roar was in a tongue unknown to the persons addressed; and, in fact, the words employed were unimpressive, being merely "Get out o' here!" But the Arabs were not aware of anything lacking in his eloquence. Never had they heard such a voice, neither one so masterful nor one so thunderous as they heard in this single great bellow. What was more, upon the very instant of its utterance the big red-faced man put his hand in his pocket, then swept that hand in a semi-circle above his head, and the air filled with glittering riches; silver coins began to shower down like Allah's sweetest rain. The Arabs recognized a stupendous personage.

When he roared they leaped from the car; they scrambled from it; they fell from it. When he rained wealth their garments fluttered as they scrambled; and instantly there was a clear space about the machine with room for it to go forward on its way. The big man jumped upon the running-board, and