The volunteers returned, after a hard fight, with a body past any human judgments.  Kloof, Daimamoto, Sheffield, and Beziers, all of whom had lost their lives in the battle with the Beni Harb, were soon buried on the beach by the hungry, thirsty, sand-penetrated Legionaries.  The shallow graves were piled with driftwood—­rocks there were none, even in the wady, which’ was of clay and gravel—­and so, protected as best might be from beasts and birds, four of the Legion entered their long homes.  The only ceremony over the fallen adventurers was the firing of a volley of six pistol-shots.

Swiftly returning heat, and a plague of black flies that poisoned with every bite, warned the Legionaries not to delay.  Hunger and thirst, too, scourged them on.  Their first care was food and drink.

Fortune favored them.  In spite of the simoom the prevailing west wind had cast up all along the shore—­for two or three miles each way—­perhaps a quarter or a third of the stores they had been forced to jettison.  Before doing anything else, the Legion brought in these cases of provisions and established a regular camp in the wady where they would be protected from observation from the Sahara.  The piling up of these stores, the building of a fire to keep off the flies, and the portioning out of what little tobacco they had with them, wonderfully stiffened their morale.

Water, however, was still lacking; and all the Legionaries, as well as the old Sheik who would have died in the flames before asking for drink, were beginning to suffer extremely.  The Master detailed Simonds, L’Heureux, and Seres to construct a still, which they did in only a little more than three hours.

The apparatus was ingeniously and efficiently built, out of two large provision tins and some piping which they got—­together with a few tools—­by swimming out to the air-liner.  The still, with a brisk fire under it, proved capable of converting sea-water into flat, tasteless fresh water at the rate of two quarts an hour.  Thirsty they might all get, to desperation; but with this supply they could survive till better could be had.

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.

Under the Master’s direction, stout mooring-piles of driftwood were sunk into the dunes, block-and-tackle gear was improvised, and lines were rove to the airship.  She was lightened by shoveling several tons of sand from her and by removing everything easily detachable; the men working in baths of sweat, with a kind of ardent abandon.

Enough power was still left in her storage-batteries to operate the air-pressure system through the floats.  This air, with a huge boiling and seething of the white surf, loosened the floats from the cling of the sand; and a score of men at the tackles succeeded at high-tide in hauling Nissr far up on the beach.