Rrisa, at his gun-station, gnawed his fingers in rage and scorn of the pursuing Feringi, and cried:  “Allah make it hard for you! Laan’abuk!” (Curses on your fathers!)

Old Sheik Abd el Rahman, close-locked in a cabin, quivered, not with fear, but with unspeakable grief and amazement past all telling.  To be thus carried away through the heavens in the entrails of the unbelievers’ flying dragon was a thing not to be believed.  He prostrated himself, with groans and cries to Allah.  The Legionaries, from galleries and gun-stations waving derisive arms, raised shouts and hurrahs.

Sweaty, spent, covered with grease and dirt, they cheered with leaping hearts.

Another shell, bursting in mid-air not fifty yards away, rocked Nissr, keeled her to port, and for a moment sent her staggering down.  She righted, lifted, again gathered speed.

More and more wild became the shooting, as she zigzagged, rose, soared into something like her old-time stride.  Behind her the sea drew back, the baffled destroyer dwindled, the harmless shots crashed in.

Ahead of her the desert opened.  Uncouth, lame, scarred by flame and shell, Nissr spread her vast wings and—­still the Eagle of the Sky, undaunted and unbeaten—­roared into swift flight toward the waiting mysteries of the vacant abodes.

Mid-morning found Nissr far from the coast, skimming along at fifteen hundred feet altitude over the Tarmanant region of the Sahara.  The one shell from the destroyer that had struck her had done no more than graze the tip of the starboard aileron, inflicting damage of no material consequence.  It could easily be repaired.

For the present, all danger of any interference from any civilized power seemed to be at an end.  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.  The windows had been slid wide open, and the two men, leaning back in easy wicker chairs, were enjoying the desert panorama each in his own way—­Bohannan with a cigar, the Master with a few leaves of the “flower of paradise.”

Now once more clean and a little rested, they had again assumed something of their former aspect.  “Captain Alden,” and as many others as could be spared from duty, were asleep.  The Legion was already pulling itself together, though in depleted numbers.  Discipline had tautened again.  Once more the sunshine of possible success had begun to slant in through a rift in the lowering clouds of disaster.

“It’s still, perhaps, only a temporary respite,” the major was saying.  “Of course, as long as we stay in the Sahara, we’re safe enough from molestation.  It’s trying to get out—­that, and shortage of petrol—­that constitute our problem now.”