"Aye--it was lying near that heretic dog!"
"The Great Pearl Star, the sacred loot from the Haram?"

"Kaukab el Durri, _M'alme_. The Great Pearl Star itself!"




CHAPTER XXVI


THE SAND-DEVILS

With hands that quivered in unison with his nerves, now no longer
impassive, the strange chief of this still stranger expedition took
from Rrisa the leather sack. Over the top of the wady a million
sand-devils were screeching. The slither of the dry snow--the white,
fine snow of sand--filled all space with a whispering rustle that
could be heard through the shouting of the simoom.

Sand was beating on them, everywhere, in the darkness lighted only by
the tortured beach-fire. The stinging particles assailed eyes, ears,
mouth; it whitened clothing, sifted into hair, choked breath. But
still the Legionaries could not take shelter under their coats. In
this moment of wondrous finding, they must see the gem of gems that
Kismet had thus flung into their grasp.

The Master loosed a knot in the cord, drew the sack open and shook
into his left palm a thing of marvellous beauty and wonder.

By the dim, fitful gleam of the fire, probably the strangest and most
costly necklace in the world became indistinctly visible. At sight of
it, everything else was forgotten--the wrecked air-liner, the waiting
Legion, the unconscious Arabs now being buried in the resistless
charge of the sand-armies. Even poor Lebon, tortured slave of the Beni
Harb, a lay neglected. For nothing save the wondrous Great Pearl Star
could these three adventurers find any gaze whatever, or any thoughts.

While Leclair and Rrisa stared with widening eyes, the Master, tense
with joy, held up their treasure-trove.

"The Great Pearl Star!" he cried, in a strange voice.

"Kaukab el Durri! See, one pearl is missing--that is the one said to
have been sold in Cairo, twelve years ago, for fifty-five thousand
pounds! But these are finer! And its value as a holy relic of
Islam--who can calculate that? God, what this means to us!"

Words will not compass the description of this wondrous thing. As
the Master held it up in the sand-lashed dimness, half-gloom and
half-light, that formed a kind of aura round the fire--an aura sheeted
through and all about by the aerial avalanches of the sand--the
Legionaries got some vague idea of the necklace.

Three black pearls and two white were strung on a fine chain of gold.
A gap in their succession told where the missing pearl formerly had
been. Each of the five pearls was of almost incalculable value; but
one, an iridescent Oman, far surpassed the others.

This pearl was about the size of a man's largest thumb-joint. Its
shape was a smooth oval; its hue, even in that dim, wind-tossed light,
showed a wondrous, tender opalescence that seemed to change and blend
into rainbow iridescences as the staring Legionaries peered at it.
The other pearls, black and white alike, ranked as marvelous gems;
but this crown-jewel of the Great Pearl Star eclipsed anything the
Master--for all his wide travel and experience of life--ever had seen.

By way of strange contrast in values the pearls were separated
from each other by worthless, little, smooth lumps of madrepore,
or unfossilized coral. These lumps were covered with tiny black
inscriptions in archaic Cufic characters; though what the significance
of these might be, the Master could not--in that gloom and howling
drive of the sand-devils--even begin to determine.

The whole adornment, as it lay in the Master's palm, typified the
Orient. For there was gold; there were gems and bits of worthless
dross intermingled; and there about it was drifting sand of infinite
ages, darkness, flashes of light, color, mystery, wonder, beauty.

"God! What this means!" the Master repeated, as the three men cringed
in the wady. "Success, dominion, power!"

"You mean--" put in Leclair, his voice smitten away by the
ever-increasing storm that ravened over the top of the gully.

"What do I _not_ mean, Lieutenant? No wonder the Apostate Sheik had to
flee from Mecca and take refuge here in this impassable wilderness at
the furthest rim of Islam! No wonder he has been hounded and hunted!
The only miracle is that some of his own tribesmen have not betrayed
him before now!"

"Master, no Arab betrays his own sheik, right or wrong!" said Rrisa in
a strange voice. "Before that, an Arab dies by his own hand!" He spoke
in Arabic, with a peculiar inflection.

Their eyes met a second by the light of the gusting fire.

"Right or wrong, _M'alme_!" repeated the Arab. Then he added: "Shall I
not now go to drag in the swine-brother Abd el Rahman?"

"Thou sayst, if he be left there--"

"Yes, Master, he will surely die. All who are not sheltered, now,
will die. All who lie there on the dune, will be drifted under, will
breathe sand, will perish."

"It is well, Rrisa. Go, drag in the swine-brother. But have a care to
harm him not. Thou wouldst gladly slay him, eh?"

"More gladly than to live myself! Still, I obey. I go, I bring him
safe to you, O Master!"

He salaamed, turned, and vanished up over the edge of the wady.

The lieutenant, warned of the danger of sand-breathing by an
unconscious man, drew the hood of the woollen _za'abut_ up over the
face of Lebon. There was nothing more he could do for the poor fellow.
Only with the passage of time could he be reawakened. The French ace
turned again to where his chief was still scrutinizing the Pearl Star
as he crouched in the wady, back to the storm-wind, face toward the
fire on the beach.

"Do you realize what this thing is?" demanded the Master, turning the
necklace in his hands. "Do you understand?"

"I have heard of it, my Captain. For years vague rumors have come to
me from the desert-men, from far oases and cities of the Sahara. Now
here, now there, news has drifted in to Algiers--not news, but rather
fantastic tales. Yes, I have often heard of the Kaukab el Durri. But
till now I have always believed it a story, a myth."

"No myth, but solid fact!" exulted the Master, with a strange laugh.
"This, Lieutenant, is the very treasure that Mohammed gathered
together during many years of looting caravans in the desert and
of capturing _sambuks_ on the Red Sea. Arabia, India, and China all
contributed to it. The Prophet gave it to his favorite wife, Ayeshah,
as he lay dying at Medina in the year 632, with his head in her lap.

"Next to the Black Stone, itself, it is possibly the most precious
thing in Islam. And now, now with this Great Pearl Star in our hands,
what is impossible?"

Silence fell between the two men. They still huddled there in the
partial protection of the wady, while all the evil _jinnee_ of the
sand-storm shrieked blackly overhead. With no further words they
continued to study the wondrous thing. The fire was dying, now, burned
out by the fierce blast of the storm and blown away to sea in long
spindrifts of spark and vapor, white as the sand-drive itself. By the
fading light little could now be seen of the Great Pearl Star. The
Master replaced it in its leather bag, knotted the cord securely about
the mouth of the receptacle, and pocketed it.

A rattle of pebbles down the side of the wady, and a grunting call,
told them Rrisa had returned. Dimly they saw him dragging the old
Sheik over the lip of the gully, down into its half-protection. He
brought the unconscious man to them, and--though bowed by the frenzy
of the storm--managed a salute.

"Here, Master, I have saved him from the _jinnee_ of the desert,"
Rrisa pantingly announced. His voice trembled with a passionate hate;
his eyes gleamed with excitement; his nails dug into the palms of his
hands. "Now Master, gladden my eyes and expand my breast by letting me
see this old jackal's blood!"

"No, Rrisa," the Master denied him. "I have other use for the old
jackal. Other punishments await him than death at my hands."

"What punishments, Master?" the Arab cried with terrible eagerness.

"Wait, and thou shalt see. And remember always, I am thy sheik, thy
preserver, with whom thou hast shared the salt. 'He who violates the
salt shall surely taste Jahannum!'"

"Death shall have me, first!" cried Rrisa, and fell silent. And for
a while the three men crouched in the wady with the two unconscious
ones, torturer and victim. At length the Master spoke:

"This won't do, Lieutenant. We must be getting back."

Leclair peered at him in the screaming dark.

"Why, my Captain?" asked he. "The Legionaries can care for themselves.
If _Nissr_ is breaking up, in the gale, we can do nothing. And on
the way we may be lost. To retrace our journey over the desert would
surely be to invite death."

"We must return, nevertheless. This storm may last all night, and it
may blow itself out in half an hour. That cannot be told. The Legion
may think us lost, and try to search for us. Lives may be sacrificed.
Morale demands that we go back. Moreover, we certainly need not
traverse the desert."

"How, then?"

"We can descend the wady to the beach, and make southward along it,
under the shelter of the dunes."

"In the noise and confusion of the storm they may take us for Arabs
and shoot us down."

"I will see to that. Come, we must go! Carry Lebon, if you like. Rrisa
and I will take Abd el Rahman."

"_M'alme_, not Abd el Rahman, now," ejaculated Rrisa, "but Abd el
Hareth![1] Let that be his title!"

[Footnote 1: The former name signifies "Slave of Compassion;" the
latter, "Slave of the Devil."]

"As thou wishest, Rrisa. But come, take his feet. I will hold him by
the shoulders. So! Now, forward!"

"And have a care not to breathe the sand, Master," Rrisa warned. "Turn
thy face away when the _jinnee_ smite!"

Stumbling, heavy-laden, the three men made their painful way down to
the beach, turned to the left, and plowed southward in deep sand. As
they left the remains of the fire a great blackness fell upon them.
The boisterous exultation of the wind, howling in from a thousand
miles of hot emptiness, out over the invisible sea now chopped into
frothy waves, seemed snatching at them. But the dunes at their left
flung the worst of the sand-storm up and over. And though whirls and
air-eddies, sand-laden, snatched viciously at them, they won along the
beach.

That was lathering toil, burdened as they were, stumbling over
driftwood and into holes, laboring forward, hardly able to distinguish
more than the rising, falling line of white that marked the surf.
Voices of water and of wind conclamantly shouted, as if all the devils
of the Moslem Hell had been turned loose to snatch and rave at them.
Heat, stifle, sand caught them by the throat; the breath wheezed in
their lungs; and on their faces sweat and sand pasted itself into a
kind of sticky mud.

After fifteen minutes of this struggle the Master paused. He dropped
Abd el Rahman's shoulders, and Rrisa the Sheik's feet, while Leclair
stood silently bowed with the weight of Lebon and of the belaboring
storm.

"_Oooo-eeee! Oooooeeee! Oooooo-eeee!_" the Master hailed, three long
times. An answering shout came back, faintly, from the black. The
Master bent, assured himself the old Sheik's mouth and nose were still
covered by the hood of the burnous, and cried: "Forward!" And the
three men stumbled on and on.

Five minutes later the Master once more paused.

"Remember, both of you," he cautioned, "not one word of the find!"

"The Great Pearl Star?" asked Leclair gruntingly.

Their voices were almost inaudible to each other in that mad tumult.
"That is to be a secret, my Captain?"

"Between us three; yes. Let that be understood!"

"I pledge my honor to it!" cried the Frenchman. Rrisa added: "The
Master has but to command, and it is done!" Then once more they plowed
on down the shore.

Only a few minutes more brought them, with surprising suddenness, to
the end of the Legionaries' trench. Trench it no longer was, however.
All the paltry digging had been swiftly filled in by the sand-devils;
and now the men were lying under the lee of the dunes, protecting
themselves as best they could with the tunics of their uniforms over
their heads.

They got up and came stumbling in confusion to greet the returning
trio. Peering in the dark, straining their eyes to see, they listened
to a few succinct words of the Master:

"Perfect success! Lethalizing was complete. Sand has buried the entire
tribe. Leclair found his former orderly, who had been their slave.
We have here their Sheik, Abd el Rahman. Nothing more to fear. Down,
everybody--tunics over heads again--let the storm blow itself out!"

The Legion lay for more than an hour, motionless, waiting in the
night. During this hour both Lebon and the old Sheik recovered
consciousness, but only in a vague manner. There was no attempt to
tell them anything, to make any plans, to start any activities. In a
Sahara simoom, men are content just to live.




CHAPTER XXVII


TOIL AND PURSUIT

Before midnight the storm died with a suddenness even greater than
that of its onset. Like a tangible flock of evil birds or of the
spirits Victor Hugo has painted in _Les Djinns_, the sand-storm blew
itself out to sea and vanished. The black sky opened its eyes of
starlight, once again; gradually calm descended on the desert, and by
an hour after midnight the steady east wind had begun to blow again.

The "wolf's tail," or first gray streak of dawn along the horizon,
found the Legion all astir. Lebon had long since been told of his
rescue; he and his lieutenant had embraced and had given each other a
long story--the enslaved man's story making Leclair's face white with
rage, his heart a furnace of vengeance on all Islam.

The Sheik, dimly understanding that these devils of Feringistan had by
their super-magic overwhelmed him and his tribe with sleep-magic
and storm-magic of the strongest, lay bound hand and foot, sullenly
brooding. No one could get a word from Abd el Rahman; not even Rrisa,
who exhausted a wonderful vocabulary of imprecation on him, until the
Master sternly bade him hold his peace.

A gaunt, sunken-eyed old hawk of the desert he lay there in the sand,
unblinkingly defiant. Tortures and death, he felt, were to be his
portion; but with the stoicism of the barbarian he made no sound.
What his thoughts were, realizing the loss of tribesmen, capture,
despoilment of the Great Pearl Star, who could tell?

A wondrous dawn, all mingled of scarlet, orange, and vivid yellows,
with streaks of absinthe hue, burned up over the desert world. It
showed _Nissr_ about as she had been the night before; for the simoom
had not thrashed up sea enough--offshore, as it had been--to break up
the partial wreck.

The air-liner had, however, settled down a good deal in the sand,
and had canted at a sharp angle to port. Her galleries, fuselage,
and wings were heavily laden with sand that materially increased her
weight; and to the casual eye she gave the impression of a bird which
never again would soar on level wing.

The major voiced discouragement, but no one shared it. Spirits were
still high, in spite of thirst and exhaustion, and of the losses
already sustained in men and material. Lombardo and "Captain Alden"
had patched up the wounded in rough, first-aid fashion; and they,
in spite of pain, shared the elation of the others in the entire
wiping-out of the Beni Harb.

As soon as the light permitted operations to begin again, the Legion
trekked over to the Arabs' former lines. Nothing now remained to tell
them of the enemy, save here or there the flutter of a bit of burnous
or _cherchia_ (head-dress), that fluttered from the white sand now
all ribbed in lovely scollops like the waves of a moveless sea. In one
spot a naked brown arm and hand were projecting heavenward, out of the
sand-ocean, as if in mute appeal to Allah.

The Legionaries heaped sand on this grim bit of death, completely
burying it, and on the fluttering cloths. And as they peered abroad
across the desert, in the glory of morning, now nothing could be seen
to mind them of the fighting-men who, like the host of Sennacherib,
had been brushed by the death-angel's wing.

The jackals knew, though, and the skulking hyenas, already
sneaking in the _nullahs_; and so did the _rion_ and the yellow
_ukab_-birds--carrion-fowl, both--which already from the farthest
blue, had begun to wheel and volplane toward the coast.

Back on the beach, exultant, yet rather silent in the face of all that
death, the Legion at once got itself into action under the vigorous
command of the Master. Twenty-three men were still fit and active for
service; and both Enemark and Lebon would in a few days be of help.

"Man-power enough," thought the Master, as he laid out his campaign.
"The only troublesome factors, are, first, _Nissr's_ condition;
second, our lack of water and supplies; and third, the possibility of
interference from Arabs or European forces, by land or sea. If we can
overcome all these--_if_, did I say? We can! We will!"

First of all, three volunteers swam out to _Nissr_ through the surf
now again beating in from the open sea. Their purpose was to bring the
wounded Kloof ashore. Even though Kloof's oversight of the stowaway
had wrecked the expedition, and though Kloof would probably be
executed in due time, common humanity dictated succoring him.

The volunteers returned, after a hard fight, with a body past any
human judgments. Kloof, Daimamoto, Sheffield, and Beziers, all of
whom had lost their lives in the battle with the Beni Harb, were
soon buried on the beach by the hungry, thirsty, sand-penetrated
Legionaries. The shallow graves were piled with driftwood--rocks there
were none, even in the wady, which' was of clay and gravel--and so,
protected as best might be from beasts and birds, four of the
Legion entered their long homes. The only ceremony over the fallen
adventurers was the firing of a volley of six pistol-shots.

Swiftly returning heat, and a plague of black flies that poisoned with
every bite, warned the Legionaries not to delay. Hunger and thirst,
too, scourged them on. Their first care was food and drink.

Fortune favored them. In spite of the simoom the prevailing west
wind had cast up all along the shore--for two or three miles each
way--perhaps a quarter or a third of the stores they had been forced
to jettison. Before doing anything else, the Legion brought in these
cases of provisions and established a regular camp in the wady where
they would be protected from observation from the Sahara. The piling
up of these stores, the building of a fire to keep off the flies,
and the portioning out of what little tobacco they had with them,
wonderfully stiffened their morale.

Water, however, was still lacking; and all the Legionaries, as well
as the old Sheik who would have died in the flames before asking
for drink, were beginning to suffer extremely. The Master detailed
Simonds, L'Heureux, and Seres to construct a still, which they did in
only a little more than three hours.

The apparatus was ingeniously and efficiently built, out of two large
provision tins and some piping which they got--together with a few
tools--by swimming out to the air-liner. The still, with a brisk fire
under it, proved capable of converting sea-water into flat, tasteless
fresh water at the rate of two quarts an hour. Thirsty they might
all get, to desperation; but with this supply they could survive till
better could be had.

While the distilling apparatus was being built, work was already under
way on _Nissr_; work which old Abd el Rahman watched with beady eyes
of hate; work in which Dr. Lombardo, fellow-partner in Kloof's guilt,
was allowed to share--the condition being frankly stated to him that
his punishment was merely being deferred.

Under the Master's direction, stout mooring-piles of driftwood were
sunk into the dunes, block-and-tackle gear was improvised, and lines
were rove to the airship. She was lightened by shoveling several tons
of sand from her and by removing everything easily detachable; the men
working in baths of sweat, with a kind of ardent abandon.

Enough power was still left in her storage-batteries to operate the
air-pressure system through the floats. This air, with a huge boiling
and seething of the white surf, loosened the floats from the cling of
the sand; and a score of men at the tackles succeeded at high-tide in
hauling _Nissr_ far up on the beach.

Rough gear, broken ship, toiling men blind with sweat, blazing African
sun, appalling isolation, vultures and jackals at work behind the
dunes, and--back of all--ocean and Sahara, made a picture fit for any
master-painter. We must throw only one glance at it, and pass on.

This much accomplished, nightfall, with the west glowing like
a stupendous jewel, brought rest. They camped in the wady, with
machine-guns mounted and sentinels out. Abd el Rahman, liberated from
his bonds and under strict surveillance, still refused to talk. No
information could be got from him; but Rrisa's eyes brightened with
unholy joy at sight of the old man ceremonially tearing his burnous
and sifting sand on his gray head.

"Allah smite thy face, _ya kalb!_" (O dog!) he murmured. "Robber of
the Haram, from Jehannum is thy body!"[1]

[Footnote 1: Alluding to the Arab superstition that every man's body
is drawn from the place where it will eventually be buried. Rrisa's
remark, therefore, was an Oriental way of wishing the Sheik back into
Hell.]

Night passed with no alarm, quietly save for the yelping and
quarreling of the jackals and hyenas at work beyond the dunes. Early
morning found the Legionaries again at work; and so for five days they
toiled. The Legion was composed of picked men, skilled in science and
deep in technical wisdom. With what tools still remained from the time
when all surplus weight had been jettisoned, and with some improvised
apparatus, they set vigorously to work repairing the engines, fitting
new rudder-plates, patching up the floats and providing the burned
propellers with metal blades.

Metal enough they had at hand, by cutting out dispensable partitions
from the interior. And beavers never worked as these men worked in
spite of the fierce smitings of the tropic sun. Even the wounded men
helped, holding or passing tools. The Master labored with the rest,
grimy, sweating, hard-jawed; and "Captain Alden" did her bit without
a moment's slackening. Save for Abd el Rahman, now securely locked
without any means of self-destruction in a stateroom, no man idled.

Anxiety dogged their every moment. Sudden storm might yet hopelessly
break up the stranded air-liner. Other tribes might have seen the
signal-fire and might descend upon the Legionaries. Arab slavers might
discover them, beating along the coast in well-armed dhows. Twice, in
five days, latteen-sailed craft passed south, and one of these put
in to investigate; but a tray of blanks from a machine-gun, at half a
mile, turned the invader's blunt nose seaward again.

The greatest peril of all was that some news of the wreck might reach
Rio de Oro and be wirelessed to civilization. That would inevitably
mean ruin. Either it would bring an air-squadron swooping down, or
battle-ships would arrive.

The Master labored doggedly to get his neutralizing apparatus
effectively operating once more; and besides this, he spent hours
locked in his cabin, working on other apparatus the nature of which
he communicated to no one. But the Legion knew that nothing could
save them from long-range naval guns, if that kind of attack should
develop. They needed no urging to put forth stern, unceasing energies.
Twice smoke on the horizon raised the alarm; but nothing came of it.

With great astuteness the Master had the wireless put in shape, at
once, and sent out three messages at random, on two successive days.
These messages stated that _Nissr_ had been sighted in flames and
falling, in North latitude 19 deg., 35'; longitude 28 deg., 16', or about two
hundred and fifty miles north-west of the Cape Verdes; that wreckage
from her had been observed somewhat south of that point; and that
bodies floating in vacuum-belts had been recovered by a Spanish
torpedo-boat.

No answer came in from any of these messages; but there was always
an excellent chance that such misinformation would drag a red herring
across the trail of pursuit.

Men never slaved as the Legionaries did, especially toward the end.
The last forty-eight hours, the Master instituted night work. The men
paused hardly long enough to eat or sleep, but snatched a bite when
they could, labored till they could do no more, and then dropped in
their places and were dragged out of the way so that others could
take hold. Some fell asleep with tools in hand, stricken down as if by
apoplexy.

The Master had wisely kept the pace moderate, at first, but had
speeded up toward the end. None grew more haggard, toil-worn, or
emaciated than he. With blistered hands, sweat-blinded eyes, parched
mouths and fevered souls these men fought against all the odds of
destiny. Half naked they strove, oppressed by heat, sun, flies,
thirst, exhaustion. Tobacco was their only stay and solace. The
Master, however, only chewed khat leaves; and as for "Captain Alden,"
she toiled with no stimulant.

It was 7:33, on the morning of the sixth day, that Frazier--now chief
engineer--came to the Master, as he was working over some complex bit
of mechanism in his cabin. Frazier saluted and made announcement:

"I think we can make a try for it now, sir." Frazier looked white and
wan, shaking, hollow-eyed, but a smile was on his lips. "Two engines
are intact. Two will run half-speed or a little better, and one will
do a little."

"One remains dead?"

"Yes, sir. But we can repair that on the way. Rudders and propellers
will do. Helicopters O.K."

"And floats?"

"Both aft floats repaired, sir. One is cut down a third, and one a
half, but they will serve."

"How about petrol?" the Master demanded. "We have only that one aft
starboard tank, now, not over three-quarters full."

"There's a chance that will do till we can run down a caravan along
the Red Sea, carrying petrol to Suakin or Port Sudan. So there's a
fighting hope--if we can raise ourselves out of this sand that clings
like the devil himself. It's lucky, sir, we jettisoned those stores.
Wind and current brought some of them back, anyhow. If they'd stayed
in the storeroom they'd have all been burned to a crisp."

"Yes, yes. You think, then, we can make a start?" The Master put his
apparatus into the desk-drawer and carefully locked it. He stood up
and tightened his belt a notch.

"We can try, sir," Frazier affirmed grimly. Unshaven, haggard, dirty,
and streaked with sweat, he made a strange figure by contrast with the
trim, military-looking chap who only a week before had started with
the other Legionaries, now no less altered than he.

"Very well," said the Master decisively. "Our prospects are good. The
wounded are coming on. Counting Lebon, we have twenty-five men. I
will have all stores reloaded at once. Be ready in one hour, sir.
Understand?"

"Yes, sir!" And Frazier, saluting again, returned to the ravaged but
once more efficient engine-room.

All hands plunged into the surf, wading ashore--for it was now
high-tide--and in short order reloaded the liner. In forty-five
minutes stores, machine-guns, and everything had been brought aboard,
the cables to the posts in the beach had been cast off and hauled in,
and all the Legionaries were at their posts. The ports were closed.
Everything was ready for the supreme test.

The Master was last to come aboard. Still dripping seawater, he
clambered up the ladder from the lower gallery to the main corridor,
and made his way into the pilot-house. Bohannan was with him, also
Leclair and Captain Alden.

The engines had already been started, and the helicopters had begun
to turn, flickering swiftly in their turbine-tubes. The Master settled
himself in the pilot's seat. All at once a buzzer sounded close at
hand.

"Well, what now?" demanded the Master into the phone communicating
with the upper port gallery.

"Smoke to southward, sir. Coming up along the Coast."

"Smoke? A steamer?"

"Can't see, sir." It was the voice of Ferrara that answered. "The
smoke is behind the long point to southward. But it is coming faster
than a merchant vessel. I should say, sir, it was a torpedo-boat or a
destroyer, under forced draft. And it's coming--it's coming at a devil
of a clip, sir!"




CHAPTER XXVIII


ONWARD TOWARD THE FORBIDDEN CITY

The Master rang for full engine-power, and threw in all six
helicopters with one swift gesture.

"Major," commanded he, as _Nissr's_ burned and wounded body began to
quiver through all its mutilated fabric; "Major, man the machine-guns
again. All stations! _Quick_!"

Bohannan departed. The droning of the helicopters rose to a shrill
hum. The Master switched in the air-pressure system; and far
underneath, white fountains of spumy water leaped up about the floats,
mingled with sand and mud all churned to frenzy under the bursting
energy of the compressed air released through thousands of tubules.

_Nissr_ trembled, hesitated, lifted a few inches, settled back once
more.

Again the buzzer sounded. The noise of rapid feet became audible
above, in the upper galleries. Ferrara called into the phone:

"It's a British destroyer, sir! She's just rounded the point, three
miles south. Signals up for us to surrender!"

"Machine-guns against naval ordnance!" gritted the Master savagely.
"Surrender?" He laughed with hot defiance.

The first shell flung a perfect tornado of brine into air, glistening;
it ricochetted twice, and plunged into the dunes. A "dud," it failed
to burst.

_Nissr_ rose again as the second shell hit fair in the hard clay of
the wady, cascading earth and sand a hundred feet in air. Both reports
boomed in, rolling like thunder over the sea.

"Shoot and be damned to you!" cried the Master. _Nissr_ was rising
now, clearing herself from the water like a wounded sea-bird. A
tremendous cascade of water sluiced from her hissing floats, swirling
in millions of sun-glinted jewels more brilliant even than Kaukab el
Durri.

Higher she mounted, higher still. The destroyer was now driving in at
full speed, with black smoke streaming from four funnels, perfectly
indifferent to possible shoals, rocks or sand-bars along this
uncharted coast. Another shell screamed under the lower gallery and
burst in a deluge of sand near one of the mooring-piles.

"Very poor shooting, my Captain," smiled Leclair, leaning far out the
port window of the pilot-house. "But then, we can't blame the gunners
for being a bit excited, trying to bag a bit of international game
like this Legion."

"And beside," put in Alden coolly, "our shifting position makes us
rather a poor target. Ah! That shell must have gone home!"