Another shot, puffing white as wool from the bow-chaser of the destroyer, screeched through the vultures, scattering them all ways, but made a clean miss of _Nissr_.
The air-liner gathered speed as the west wind got behind her, listed her, pushed her forward in its mighty hands. Swifter, ever swifter, her shadow slipped over dune and wady, over hillock and _nullah_, off away toward the pellucidly clear-golden tints of the horizon beyond which lay the unknown.
Rrisa, at his gun-station, gnawed his fingers in rage and scorn of the pursuing Feringi, and cried: "Allah make it hard for you!
_Laan"abuk!_" (Curses on your fathers!)
Old Sheik Abd el Rahman, close-locked in a cabin, quivered, not with fear, but with unspeakable grief and amazement past all telling. To be thus carried away through the heavens in the entrails of the unbelievers" flying dragon was a thing not to be believed. He prostrated himself, with groans and cries to Allah. The Legionaries, from galleries and gun-stations waving derisive arms, raised shouts and hurrahs.
Sweaty, spent, covered with grease and dirt, they cheered with leaping hearts.
Another sh.e.l.l, bursting in mid-air not fifty yards away, rocked _Nissr_, keeled her to port, and for a moment sent her staggering down. She righted, lifted, again gathered speed.
More and more wild became the shooting, as she zigzagged, rose, soared into something like her old-time stride. Behind her the sea drew back, the baffled destroyer dwindled, the harmless shots crashed in.
Ahead of her the desert opened. Uncouth, lame, scarred by flame and sh.e.l.l, _Nissr_ spread her vast wings and--still the Eagle of the Sky, undaunted and unbeaten--roared into swift flight toward the waiting mysteries of the vacant abodes.
Mid-morning found _Nissr_ far from the coast, skimming along at fifteen hundred feet alt.i.tude over the Tarmanant region of the Sahara.
The one sh.e.l.l from the destroyer that had struck her had done no more than graze the tip of the starboard aileron, inflicting damage of no material consequence. It could easily be repaired.
For the present, all danger of any interference from any civilized power seemed to be at an end. But the world had discovered that _Nissr_ and her crew had not yet been destroyed, and the Legionaries felt they must prepare for all eventualities. The stowaway"s rash act was still big with possibilities of the most sinister import.
"This is probably just a temporary respite," said Bohannan, as he sat with the Master in the latter"s cabin. The windows had been slid wide open, and the two men, leaning back in easy wicker chairs, were enjoying the desert panorama each in his own way--Bohannan with a cigar, the Master with a few leaves of the "flower of paradise."
Now once more clean and a little rested, they had again a.s.sumed something of their former aspect. "Captain Alden," and as many others as could be spared from duty, were asleep. The Legion was already pulling itself together, though in depleted numbers. Discipline had tautened again. Once more the sunshine of possible success had begun to slant in through a rift in the lowering clouds of disaster.
"It"s still, perhaps, only a temporary respite," the major was saying.
"Of course, as long as we stay in the Sahara, we"re safe enough from molestation. It"s trying to get out--that, and shortage of petrol--that const.i.tute our problem now."
"Yes?" asked the chief, noncommittally. He peered out the window at the vast, indigo horizons of the desert, curving off to northward into a semicircle of burnished blue. Here, there, the etherial wonder of a mirage painted the sandy sea. Vast distances opened on all sides; the sparkling air, brilliant with what seemed a kind of suspended jewel-dust, made every object visible at an incredible remoteness. The wonder of that morning sun and desert could not be put in words.
"Our troubles are merely postponed," the Celt continued, gloomily.
"The damage was done when that infernal destroyer sighted us. Just how the alarm was given, and what brought the sea-wasp racking her engines up the coast, we can"t tell. But the cat"s out of the bag, now, and we"ve got to look out for an attack at any moment we try to leave this region."
"It"s obvious my wireless messages about being wrecked at sea won"t have much weight now," the Master replied, a.n.a.lytically. "They would have, though, if that slaving-dhow hadn"t put in to investigate us. I have an idea that those _jallahs_ (slavers) must in some way have let the news out at Bathurst, down in Gambia. That"s the nearest British territory."
"I wish they"d come within machine-gun fire!" growled the major, blowing smoke.
"Still, we"ve got lots of room to maneuver," the chief continued.
"We"re heading due east now," with a glance at the wall-compa.s.s and large-scale chart of Northern Africa. "We"re now between Mauretania and Southern Algeria, bound for Fezzan, the Libyan Desert, and Nubia on the Red Sea. That is a clear reach of more than three thousand miles of solid desert."
"Oh, we"re all right, as long as we stay in the desert," Bohannan affirmed. "But they"ll be watching for us, all right, when we try to leave. It"s all British territory to the east of us, from Alexandria down to Cape Town. If we could only make our crossing of the Nile and the Red Sea, at night--?"
"Impossible, Major. That"s where we"ve got to restock petrol. If it comes to a show-down, crippled as we are, we"ll fight! Of course, I realize that, fast as we fly, the wireless flies faster. We may have to rely on our neutralizers again--"
"They"re working?"
"Imperfectly, yes. They"ll still help us, in "civilized warfare."
And as for what will happen at Mecca, if the Faithful are indiscreet enough to offer any resistance--"
"Got something new, have you?"
"I think it may prove something of a novelty, Major. Time will tell, if Allah wills. Yes, I think we may have a little surprise for our friends, the Meccans."
The two fell silent again, watching the desert panorama roll back and away, beneath them. Afar, two or three little oases showed feathery-tufted palms standing up like delicate carvings against the remote purple s.p.a.ces or against the tawny, seamed desolation that burned as with raw colors of fires primeval. Here, there, patches of stunted tamarisk bushes were visible. A moving line of dust showed where a distant caravan was plodding eastward over the sparkling crystals of an ancient salt sea-bottom. A drift of low-hanging wood-smoke, very far away, betrayed the presence of a camp of the Ahl Bayt, the People of the Black Tents.
The buzzer of the Master"s phone broke the silence between the two men, a silence undertoned by the throb and hum of the now effectively operating engines.
"Well, what is it?" the Master queried.
"Promising oasis, _mon capitaine_," came the voice of Leclair from the upper starboard gallery. "Through my gla.s.s I can make out extensive date-palm groves, pomegranate orchards, and gardens. There must be plenty of water there. We should take water, eh?"
"Right!" the Master answered. He got up and turned to Bohannan.
"Major," commanded he, "have Simonds and a crew of six stand by, in the lower gallery, to descend in the nacelle. Rrisa is to go. They will need him, to interpret. Give them a few of the trinkets from that a.s.sortment we brought for barter, and a little of our Arabic money."
"Yes, sir. But you know only two of the detachable tanks are left."
"Two will suffice. Have them both lowered, together with the electric-drive pump. Don"t annoy me with petty details. You are in charge of this job now. Attend to it!"
He pa.s.sed into the pilot-house, leaned at the window and with his gla.s.ses inspected the deep green patch, dark as the profoundest sea, that marked the oasis. A little blind village nestled there, with mud-brick huts, a watch-tower and a tiny minaret; date-grounds and fields of corn, melons, and other vegetables spread a green fringe among the groves.
CHAPTER XXIX
"LABBAYK!"
As Nissr slowed near the oasis, the frightened Arabs--who had been at their _ghanda_, or mid-day meal--swarmed into the open. They left their mutton, _cous-cous_, date-paste, and lentils, their chibouques with perfumed vapor and their keef-smoking, and manifested extreme fear by outcries in shrill voices. Under the shadows of the palms, that stood like sentinels against the blistering sands, they gathered, with wild cries.
No fighting-men, these. The gla.s.ses disclosed that they were mostly old men, women, children. Young men were few. The fighters had probably gone with the caravan, seen a while before. There came a little ragged firing; but a round of blanks stopped that, and sent the villagers skurrying back into the shelter of the palms, mimosas, and jamelon trees.
_Nissr_ poised at seven hundred and fifty feet and let down tanks, nacelle, and men. There was no resistance. The local _naib_ came with trembling, to make salaam. Water was freely granted, from the _sebil_, or public fountain--an ancient tank with century-deep grooves cut in its solid stone rim by innumerable camel-hair ropes. The flying men put down a hose, threw the switch of the electric pump, and in a few minutes half emptied the fountain. The astonishment of the villagers pa.s.sed all bounds.
"These be men of great magic," said the _naib_, to Rrisa, after the tanks had been hoisted to _Nissr_, and a dozen sacks of fresh dates had been purchased for the trinkets plus two _ryals_ (about two dollars). "Tell me of these "People of the Books!""
"I will tell thee of but one thing, Abu Shawarib," (father of whiskers) answered Rrisa with pride. "Old Abd el Rahman is our prisoner in the flying ship above. We are taking him back to Mecca.
All his people of the Beni Harb lie dead far toward the great waters, on the edge of the desert of the sea. The Great Pearl Star we also have. That too returneth to the Haram. _Allah iselmak!_" (Thanks be to Allah!)
The _naib_ prostrated himself, with joyful cries, and touched lips and forehead with quivering fingers. All others who heard the news, did likewise. Fruits, pomegranate, syrup, honey, and _jild el faras_[1] were brought as offerings of grat.i.tude. The crew ascended to the air-liner amid wild shouts of praise and jubilation.
[Footnote 1: Literally "mare"s skin." Apricot paste in dried sheets, cut into convenient sizes. A great dainty among the Arabs.]
"You see, Leclair?" the Master inquired, as _Nissr_ drew away once more to eastward, leaving the village in the palms behind. "We hold power already with the sons of Islam! What will it be when--?"
"When you attempt to take from them their all, instead of returning to them what they so eagerly desire to have!" the Frenchman put in. "Let us hope all for the best, my Captain, but let us keep our powder very dry!"
Two days and one night of steady flying over the ocean of sand, with but an occasional oasis or caravan to break the appalling wastes of emptiness, brought _Nissr_ to the Valley of the Nile. The river of h.o.a.r antiquity came to view in a quivering heat-haze, far to eastward.