Another little silence. Then the chief said:

"I am going to take two men and undertake what seems a preposterous attack. I need only two. I shall not call for volunteers, because you would all offer yourselves. You must stay here."

"In case my plan succeeds, you are to come at my call--three long hails. If my plan fails, Major Bohannan will command you; and I know you will all fight to the last breath and to the final drop of blood!"

"Don't do this thing, sir!" the major protested. "What chance of success has it? These desert men can see, where a white man is blind.

They can scent danger as a hunting-dog scents the spoor of game.

You're simply throwing your life away, and we need that life!"

"I will take Lieutenant Leclair, who knows these people," the Master continued, paying no heed, "and Rrisa, who is of their kin. You others, all sit tight!"

A chuckling laugh, out there on the vague sands, seemed to mock him.

It burst into a raw, barking cachinnation, that somehow stirred the blood with shrinking horror.

"One of the Sahara Sanitary Corps," remarked Leclair, dryly. "A hyena.

Well may he laugh! Feasting enough for him and his before this dance is over!"

A gleam of fire, off to the left where the farther dunes approached the sea, suddenly began to show. All eyes turned toward it. The little fire soon grew into a leaping flame, its base hidden by sand-mounds.

No Arabs were visible there, but they had surely lighted it, using driftwood from the beach. Up into the purple-velvet night whirled sparks and fire-tongues; red smoke spiraled on the vagrant desert breeze.

"A signal-fire, Master!" whispered Rrisa. "It will be seen in far oases. If it burn two hours, that will mean an enemy with great plunder. Others of the Beni Harb will come; there will be gathering of the tribes. That fire must not burn, _M'alme!_"

"Nor must the Beni Harb live!" To the major: "Collect a dozen lethal guns and bring them to me!"

When the guns were at hand, the Master apportioned them between Leclair, Rrisa, and himself. With the one apiece they already had, each man carried five of the guns, in pockets and in belt. The small remaining stock of lethal pellets were distributed and the weapons fully loaded.

"In three minutes, Major," said the Master, "we leave these lines.

Ten minutes after that, open a scattering fire, all along the trench.

Shoot high, so as to be sure we are not hit."

"Ah, a barrage, sir?" the major exclaimed.

"Not in the least. My purpose is quite different. Never mind, but listen to my orders. Keep up that fire sparingly, for five minutes.

Then cease. And keep silent till we return.

"Remember, I will give three long hails when we start to come back.

Those will warn you not to shoot if you see dim figures in the night.

Either we shall be back in these lines by nine o'clock, or--"

"Or we will go after you!" came the voice of "Captain Alden," with a little catch of anxiety not at all masculine. Something in the femininity of her promise stirred the Master's heart a second, but he dismissed it.

"Either we shall return by nine, or never," he said calmly.

"Let me go, then!" whispered Alden. "Go, in place of you! You are more needed than I. Without you all these men are lost. Without me--they would not miss me, sir!"

"I cannot argue that point with you, Captain. We start at once." He turned to Rrisa, and in Arabic said:

"The road we are about to take may lead thee to Paradise. A sand-adder, a scorpion, or a bullet may be the means. Dost thou stand firm with me?"

The Arab stretched out a thin, brown hand to him in the dark.

"Firm as my faith, Master!" he replied. "Both to help you, and to destroy the _beni kalb_ (dog-sons), I would pa.s.s through Al Araf, into Eblis! What will be, must be. No man dieth except by permission of Allah, according to what is written on the scrolls of the angel, Al Sijil.

"I go with you, Master, where you go, were it to Jehannum! I swear that by the rising of the stars, which is a mighty oath. _Tawakkal al Allah!_" (Place reliance on Allah!)

"By the rising of the stars!" repeated Leclair, also in Arabic. "I too am with you to the end, _M'alme!_"

The Master a.s.sured himself that his night-gla.s.ses with the megaphotic reflectors were in their case slung over his shoulder. He looked once more to his weapons, both ordinary and lethal, and likewise murmured:

"By the rising of the stars!"

Then said he crisply, while the fire-glow of Leclair's strongly inhaled cigarette threw a dim light on the tense lines of his wounded face:

"Come! Let us go!"

Leclair buried his cigarette in the warm earth.

Rrisa caught up a handful of sand and flung it toward the unseen enemy, in memory of the decisive pebbles thrown by Mohammed at the Battle of Bedr, so great a victory for him.

Then he followed the Master and Leclair, with a whispered:

"_Bismillah wa Allahu akbar_![1]"

[Footnote 1: In the name of Allah, and Allah is greatest!]

Together, crawling on their bellies like dusty puff-adders of the Sahara itself, the three companions in arms--American, French, Arab--slid out of the shallow trench, and in the gloom were lost to sight of the beleaguered Flying Legion.

Their mission of death, death to the Beni Harb or to themselves, had begun.

CHAPTER XXIV

ANGELS OF DEATH

In utter silence, moving only a foot at a time, the trio of man-hunters advanced. They s.p.a.ced themselves out, dragged themselves forward one at a time, took advantage of every slightest depression, every wrinkle in the sandy desert-floor, every mummy-like acacia and withered tamarisk-bush, some spa.r.s.e growth of which began to mingle with the halfa-gra.s.s as they pa.s.sed from the coast-dunes to the desert itself.

Breathing only through open mouths, for greater stillness, taking care to crackle no twig nor even slide loose sand, they labored on, under the pale-hazed starlight. Their goal was vague. Just where they should come upon the Beni Harb, in that confused jumble of dunes and _nullahs_ (ravines) they could not tell; nor yet did they know the exact distance separating the Legion's trenches from the enemy. All was vague mystery--a mystery ready at any second, at any slightest alarm, to blaze out death upon them.

None the less, stout-hearted and firm of purpose, they serpented their painful way p.r.o.ne on the hot, dusty bosom of the Sahara. Fate for them and for all the Legion, lay on so slight a thing as the stirring of a twig, the _tunk_ of a boot against a bleached camel's skull, the possibility of a sneeze or cough.

Even the chance scaring-up of a hyena or a vagrant jackal might betray them. Every breath, every heartbeat was pregnant with contingencies of life and death.

Groveling, they slipped forward, dim, moving shadows in a world of brown obscurity. At any moment, one might lay a hand on a sleeping puff-adder or a scorpion. But even that had been fore-reckoned. All three of them had thought of such contingencies and weighed them.

Not one but had determined to suppress any possible outcry, if thus stricken, and to die in absolute silence.