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The Master saw him in the wady, dimly visible through the ghostly white sand-shrouds spinning in the blue-whipped fire-glare. There on hands and knees the lieutenant was huddled. With eager hands he was tearing the hood of a za'abut a rough, woolen slave cloak, patched and ragged from the face of a prostrate figure more than half snowed under a sand-drift. "Nom de Dieu!" the Master heard him cry.

While Sir Christopher was deliberating, Arundel, holding his piece in readiness, cautiously took his way toward the thicket, whence he fancied the eyes had looked. As he was groping along, not yet recovered from the blinding effect of the fire-glare, he suddenly felt his gun seized, and several strong arms thrown round his person. He cried out for assistance, and struggled, but in vain.

A shower of plaster and bits of brick stung her face and spattered all over her. She saw the point of a pick-axe shine an instant in the fire-glare. "I'm here," she called. "I'm safe. Take your time. It's not hot in here yet." The excited blows thudded on the wall. The sledges broke a hole as big as her head, four times as big as her head. "Take your time!" she repeated. "There is no hurry now."

Simoom and sand now appeared forgotten by the trio. Keen excitement had gripped them; it held them as they crouched above the Sheik. "Allah is being good to us!" exulted the Master, peering by the gale-driven fire-glare. "This capture is worth more to the Legion than a hundred machine-guns. What will not the orthodox tribes give for this arch-Shiah, this despoiler of the sacred Haram at Mecca?"

There was more fire-glare to the south, in the direction of the mine-equipment park and the mine-labor camp, and from that direction the bulk of the firing was to be heard. The driver, a young lieutenant, slid back the duraglass canopy for him to climb in, then snapped it into place when he had strapped himself into his seat, and hit the controls.