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The Master nodded silently, keeping dark eyes fixed on the horizon of cloud-rack. Above, the last faint prickings of stars were fading. The moon had paled to a ghostly circle. Shuddering, Nissr fled, with vapory horizons seemingly on her own level so that she appeared at the bottom of an infinite bowl. Bohannan, feeling need of speech, tried to be casual as he added: "I don't feel sleepy. Do you?
J'y reste!" cried he. "Mon capitaine!" The day passed uneventfully, at high altitudes, steadily rushing into the eye of the East. In the stillness and solitude of the upper air-lanes, Nissr roared onward, invincibly, with sun and sky above, with shining clouds piled below in swiftly retreating masses that spun away to westward. Far below, sea-storm and rain battled over the Atlantic.
The adventure still was critical; but the scales of success seemed lowering in favor of the Legion. The feel, in his breast pocket, of the leather sack containing Kaukab el Durri, which he had again taken possession of after the magic tests, gave added encouragement. This, the third gift, was to be delivered only at the last moment, just before Nissr should roar aloft.
The men jumped out, made fast their tackles to Captain Alden's plane there, leaped in again and signaled: "Hoist away!" With noiseless speed the winch gathered in the cable. Up swooped the nacelle. As it cleared the roof, Nissr purred forward, slid away, gathered speed over the city where already the alarm had been given.
The presence of a woman, as such, in this Legion, would be a disturbing factor. You accept my terms?" "Certainly! May I ask one other favor?" "What favor?" "Spare Kloof and Lombardo!" "Impossible!" "I know their guilt, sir. Through their carelessness in not having discovered the stowaway and in having let him escape, the Legion came near sudden death. I know Nissr is a wreck, because of them.
"Back, every man of you!" Came another dull, jarring explosion. Nissr reeled to port. The Legionaries trickled down the companion-ladders. From somewhere below a cry rose: "The aft starboard float it's gone! And the stabilizer " Confused sounds echoed. Nissr sagged drunkenly, lost headway and slewed off her course, turning slowly in the thin, cold air.
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.
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.
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.
To this ditch the Master sent two men in search of the largest stone they could find there. When they returned with a rock some foot in diameter, he ordered it placed half-way between Nissr and the palm-grove. These preparations made, the Master lined up his Legionaries for inspection and final instructions.
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