United States or Senegal ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Still dripping seawater, he clambered up the ladder from the lower gallery to the main corridor, and made his way into the pilot-house. Bohannan was with him, also Leclair and Captain Alden. The engines had already been started, and the helicopters had begun to turn, flickering swiftly in their turbine-tubes. The Master settled himself in the pilot's seat.
Fairy tales and legends, "Arabian Nights," and all the mystic lore of the East never conjured forth more brain-numbing plenitudes of fortune, nor painted more stupefying beauty, than now gleamed up from those eight excavations hewn in the dull, soft metal. "Nom de Dieu!" Leclair kept monotonously repeating. "Mais, nom de Dieu! Ah, the pigs ah, the sacred pigs!"
This way and that he peered, squinting with eyes that did not understand. "Nom de Dieu!" ejaculated Leclair, at his side. "Wallah!" shouted Rrisa, furiously. "Oh, may Allah smite their faces!" Each man, as he leaped to the rampart top, stood transfixed with astonishment. Most of them cried out in their native tongues. Their amazement was well-grounded. Not an Arab was to be seen.
"Ah," laughed Leclair, "the ball has opened, eh? Well this is now no time for talk, for empty words. I think I understand you, my Captain; and to the death I stand at your right hand!" Their palms met and clasped, a moment, in the firm grip of a compact between two strong men, unafraid. Then each drew his pistol, crouching there at the windows of the pilot-house.
Surely will, if they investigate that delta and find only a few bodies. They'll conclude some of us have got through. And if they pick up our trail, with those white dromedaries of theirs " "The sacred pigs!" ejaculated Leclair. "Ah, messieurs, now you begin to know the Arabs as I have long known them." With eyes of hate and pain he peered back at the darkening line of the Iron Mountains.
"I assume, however, that you have the authority to accept my surrender and that of my crew. I assume, also, that you are willing to sign for the airship." He opened a drawer, took a paper, and on it wrote a few words. These he read over carefully, adding a comma, a period. Leclair watched him with fixed gaze, struggling against some strange paralysis that bound him with unseen cords of steel.
For nothing save the wondrous Great Pearl Star could these three adventurers find any gaze whatever, or any thoughts. While Leclair and Rrisa stared with widening eyes, the Master, tense with joy, held up their treasure-trove. "The Great Pearl Star!" he cried, in a strange voice. "Kaukab el Durri!
"Yes, my Captain, or else starve us where we lie!" the lieutenant put in. "Or wait for thirst and fever to do the work. Then rich plunder for the sons of theft!" "Ah, Leclair, but we're not going to stay here, for any such contingency!" exclaimed the chief, and turned toward the door. "Come, en avant! Forward, Leclair!" "My Captain!
With them he packed all the remaining food a few lentils, a little goat's-milk cheese, and a handful of dates fried in clarified butter. This basket, with a revolver and a handful of cartridges, also the extra slippers taken from Leclair and the orderly, made all the burden the woman could carry. The Master's load, heavier far, was one of the water-skins.
"Now, when it comes to a fight " "Ten dromedaries no, nine " Leclair judged. "And six camel-drivers," put in the woman, gun in hand. "A small caravan!" "Hold your fire, all!" commanded the Master. "They're headed right across this wady. Wait till I give the word; then rush them! And no prisoners!" An hour after sundown, four Legionaries pushed westward, driving the gaunt, mange-stained camels.
Word Of The Day