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Updated: May 1, 2025
Almost at once, the Master also got a glimpse of two tiny pin-pricks of crimson, high in air above the city-mass. Swiftly Nissr drew over the building. Far, very far down in the chasm of emptiness, tiny strings of light infinitesimal luminous beads on invisible threads marked Broadway, Fifth Avenue, countless other streets. The two red winks drew almost underneath.
Though he could form no word, a dry, choking gasp came from his throat. And there was cause for astonishment; yes, even for fear. A thing was beginning to take place, there in the brightly lighted cabin of Nissr, such as man's eye never yet had beheld. The Master was disappearing. His form, sitting there at the desk his face wearing an odd smile had already begun to grow less distinct.
A perfect hail of rifle-fire riddled the air all about him, but still he labored with sweat streaming down his face all blackened with dirt and cement. From Nissr, far above, cries and shouts rang down at him, mingled with the sharp spitting of the machine-guns from the lower gallery.
The arrival of Simonds, with the spare window-pane, and of Brodeur one of the boldest flyers out of Saloniki in the last months of the war broke in upon the Master's reveries. Only a few minutes were required to mend the window. During this time, the Master explained some unusual features of control to the Frenchman, then let him take charge of Nissr.
"A mere detail!" "A mere detail to murder a woman?" "Pardon me, you misunderstand. I mean, the manner in which you are to leave Nissr matters little, so long as you leave. I will see that you are safely landed that no harm arrives to you. "But you shall not remain with us. Now, kindly stay here. Lock the cabin door after I have gone, and admit no one until I return.
I hope our men outside made good slaughter of these Moslem pigs, before they died. Eh, my Captain?" "Well?" "Is it not possible that Nissr and our men still live? That they will presently bombard the city? That they may rescue us?" The Master shook his head. "They may live," he answered, "but as for rescuing us " His gesture completed the idea. Suddenly he pointed. "See!" he cried. "Another door!"
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.
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.
Through the shimmering, quivering air, an arid pallor extended up the eastern sky; a pale, milky illumination, dull-white over the desert, that told of the furnace into which Nissr was drifting if indeed she could survive till she reached land.
Shut into his cabin, with the door locked against intrusion, he was lying face downward on the metal floor, praying. For the first time in the world's history, a Moslem's kiblah, or direction of prayer, was directly downward! "Reverse!" ordered the Master. Nissr hovered exactly above the Haram enclosure. "Lower to five hundred feet, then hold her!"
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