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"Where are we?" he cried; but no answer was necessary; he saw the sea below him, and stretching far to the east, north, and south. He exchanged places with Rodier, who, too tired even to eat, fell asleep at once. "Good thing he woke me," thought Smith.
It proved to be very poorly equipped, having a very primitive forge and a pair of clumsy native bellows; but Rodier set to work to make the best of it, welding the broken stay with the smith's help, while his employer remained outside the hut to keep watch over the aeroplane, which the people were beginning to examine rather more minutely than he liked.
Two British officers and some civilians were talking to Rodier, who was cleaning the engine with the assistance of a young fellow with the cut of a ship's engineer. The arrival of the cabs caused a stir among the spectators. Smith alighted, asked Mr. Macdonald to see that the petrol and provisions were carried quickly to the aeroplane, and advanced to ask Rodier how he had been getting on.
Apparently the magic touch of gold reconciled the farmer to these hasty proceedings, for he made no more ado, but took the lamp and bade the three men to follow him. "What's wrong, mister?" asked Rodier. "You look as if you had been shocked." Smith drew the paper from his pocket, gave it to Rodier, and then, striking a match, showed him the paragraph, and lighted more matches while he read it.
Crossing the Dragoman Pass, they came into an upward current of air that set the machine rocking, and Smith for the first time felt a touch of nervousness lest it should break down and fall among these inhospitable crags. Rodier planed downwards, until they seemed to skim the crests.
A little farther on he came to the Ministry of War with its large square; but there a regiment of soldiers was drilling. Rodier steered a point to the north-west, and the aeroplane passed over the Galata bridge that spans the Golden Horn.
"Mais, monsieur," said Rodier, but the explorer fairly shrieked him to silence, approached him, smote one fist with the other, and hurled abuse at him with such incoherent volubility that Smith, whose French was pretty good, could not make out a word of it, and held on to the levers in helpless laughter.
He still steered almost due east, though a point or two southward would be more direct, because he wished to avoid the Syrian desert; a breakdown in such a barren tract of country would mean a fatal delay. Soon afterwards he reached a broad full river, flowing rapidly between verdant banks. "The Euphrates," he shouted to Rodier. "Ah! I wish we had time for a swim," replied the man.
Rodier and he took turns at the engine, each dozing from sheer weariness during his spell off. They flew on all through the night, and when dawn began to break, saw straight ahead land stretching far to right and left. There was no doubt that this was the Oman peninsula, which, jutting out from the Arabian mainland, almost closes the Gulf.
Rodier had cleaned the engine, and was eating his dinner among the cabbages. He favoured the crowd with a pleasant smile, although some were Germans, and because others were pretty. The petrol was placed on board and the tank filled, Smith, with long-suffering patience, replying to the questions of the English-speaking spectators.
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