"Ah, do you not see? No horses. No camels. That means their oasis is not far. That means they are not traveling. This is no nomadic moving of the Ahl Bayt. No, no, my Captain. It is--"

"Well, what?"

"A war-party. What you in your language call the--the reception committee, _n'est-ce pas?_ Ah, yes, the reception committee."

"And the guests?" demanded the major.

"The guests are all the members of the Flying Legion!" answered the Frenchman, with another draw at his indispensable cigarette.

CHAPTER XX

THE WAITING MENACE

"Ah, sure now, but that's fine!" exclaimed the major with delight, his eyes beginning to sparkle in antic.i.p.ation. "The best of news! A little action, eh? I ask nothing better. All I ask is that we live to reach the committee--live to be properly killed! It's this dying-alive that kills _me_! Faith, it tears the nerves clean out of my body!"

"That is a true Arab idea, Major," smiled Leclair. "To this extent you are brother to the Bedouin. They call a man _fatis_, as a reproach, who dies any other way than fighting. May you never--may none of us--ever suffer the disgrace of being _fatis_!"

"There's not much danger of that!" put in the Master. "That's a big war-party, and we're drifting ash.o.r.e almost exactly where they're waiting. From the appearance of the group, they look like Beni Harb people--'Sons of Fighting' you know--though I didn't expect we'd sight any of that breed so far to westward."

"Beni Harb, eh?" echoed the Frenchman, his face going grim. "Ah, _mes amis_, it is with pleasure I see that race, again!" He sighted carefully through his gla.s.s, as _Nissr_ sagged on and on, ever closer to the waves, ever nearer the hard, sun-roasted sh.o.r.es of Africa.

"Yes, those are Beni Harb men. _Dieu_! May it be Sheik Abd el Rahman's tribe! May I have strength to repay the debt I owe them!"

"What debt, Lieutenant?" asked the chief.

Leclair shrugged his shoulders.

"A personal matter, my Captain! A personal debt I owe them--with interest!"

"You will have nearly a score and a half of good fighting men to help you settle your account," smiled the Master. Then, to Bohannan: "It looks now, Major, as if you'd have a chance to try your sovereign remedy."

"Faith! Machine-guns, eh?"

"Yes, provided we get near enough to use them."

"No vibrations this time, eh?" demanded the Celt, a bit of good-humored malice in his voice. "Vibrations are all very well in their way, sir, but when it comes to a man-to-man fight--"

"It's not that, Major," the chief interrupted. "We haven't the available power, now, for high-tension current. So we must fall back on lesser means.

"You, sir, and Lieutenant Leclair, get the six gun-crews together at their stations. When we drift in range, give the Beni Harb a few trays of blanks. That may scatter them without any further trouble. We want peace, but if it's got to be war, very well. If they show real fight, rake them hard!"

"They will show fight, surely enough, mon capitaine," put in Leclair, as he and the major made their way to the oddly tiptilted door leading back into the main corridor. "I know these folk. No blank cartridges will scatter that breed. Even the Turks are afraid of them. They have a proverb: 'Feed the Beni Harb, and they will fire at Allah!' That says it all.

"Mohammed laid a special curse on them. I imagine your orderly, Rrisa, will have something to say when he learns that we have Beni Harb as opponents. Now, sir, we shall make all haste to get the machine-guns into action!"

Major Bohannan laughed with more enjoyment than he had shown since _Nissr_ had left America. They both saluted and withdrew. When the door was closed again, a little silence fell in the pilot-house, the floor of which had now a.s.sumed an angle of nearly thirty degrees.

The droning of the helicopters, the drift of the sickly white smoke that--rising from _Nissr's_ stern--wafted down-wind with her, the drunken angle of her position all gave evidence of the serious position in which the Flying Legion now found itself. Suddenly the Master spoke. His dismissal of Bohannan and Leclair had given him the opportunity he wanted.

"Captain Alden," said he, bruskly, with the unwillingness of a determined man forced to reverse a fixed decision. "I have reconsidered my dictum regarding you."

"Indeed, sir?" asked the woman, from where she stood leaning against the sill of the slanted window. "You mean, sir, I am to stay with the Legion, till the end?"

"Yes. Your service in having shot down the stowaway renders it imperative that I show you some human recognition. You gained admission to this force by deception, and you broke parole and escaped from the stateroom where I had imprisoned you. But, as you have explained to me, you heard the explosion, you heard the outcry of pursuit, and you acted for my welfare.

"I can weigh relative values. I grant your request. The score is wiped clean. You shall remain, on one condition."

"And what is that, sir?" asked "Captain Alden," with a voice of infinite relief.

"That you still maintain the masculine disguise. 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. Still, we need men, and those two are good fighters. Above all, we need Lombardo, the doctor I ask you to spare them at least their lives!"

"That is the woman's heart in you speaking, now," the chief answered, coldly. His eyes were far ahead, where the war-party was beginning to debouch on the white sands along the sh.o.r.e--full three hundred fighting-men, or more, well armed, as the tiny sparkles of sunlight flicking from weapons proved. As _Nissr_ drew in to land, the Beni Harb grew visible to the naked eye, like a swarm of ants on the desert rim.

"The woman's heart," repeated the Master. "That is your only fault and weakness, that you are a woman and that you forgive."

"You grant my request?"

"No, Captain. Nor can I even discuss it. Those two men have cut themselves off from the Legion and signed their own death warrant.

The sentence I have decided on, must stand. Do not speak of this to me again, madam! Now, kindly withdraw."

"Yes, sir!" And Alden, saluting, approached the door.

"One moment! Send Leclair back to me. Inform Ferrara that he is to command the second gun-crew."

"Yes, sir!" And the woman was gone.

Leclair appeared, some moments later. He suspected nothing of the subterfuge whereby the Master had obtained a few minutes' conversation alone with "Captain Alden."

"You sent for me, sir?" asked the Frenchman.

"I did. I have some questions to ask you. Others can handle the guns, but you have special knowledge of great importance to me. And first, as an expert ace, what are our chances of making that sh.o.r.e, sir, now probably five miles off? In a crisis, I always want to ask an expert's opinion."

Leclair peered from under knit brows at the altimeter needle and the inclinometer. He leaned from the pilot-house window and looked down at the waves, now hardly a hundred feet below, their foaming hiss quite audible. From those waves, red light reflected as the sun sank, illuminated the Frenchman's lean, brown features and flung up wavering patches of illumination against the pilot-house ceiling of burnished metal, through the tilted windows that sheerly overhung the water.

"_Eh bien_--" murmured Leclair, noncommittally.