“Yes?” asked the chief, noncommittally.  He peered out the window at the vast, indigo horizons of the desert, curving off to northward into a semicircle of burnished blue.  Here, there, the etherial wonder of a mirage painted the sandy sea.  Vast distances opened on all sides; the sparkling air, brilliant with what seemed a kind of suspended jewel-dust, made every object visible at an incredible remoteness.  The wonder of that morning sun and desert could not be put in words.

“Our troubles are merely postponed,” the Celt continued, gloomily.  “The damage was done when that infernal destroyer sighted us.  Just how the alarm was given, and what brought the sea-wasp racking her engines up the coast, we can’t tell.  But the cat’s out of the bag, now, and we’ve got to look out for an attack at any moment we try to leave this region.”

“It’s obvious my wireless messages about being wrecked at sea won’t have much weight now,” the Master replied, analytically.  “They would have, though, if that slaving-dhow hadn’t put in to investigate us.  I have an idea that those jallahs (slavers) must in some way have let the news out at Bathurst, down in Gambia.  That’s the nearest British territory.”

“I wish they’d come within machine-gun fire!” growled the major, blowing smoke.

“Still, we’ve got lots of room to maneuver,” the chief continued.  “We’re heading due east now,” with a glance at the wall-compass and large-scale chart of Northern Africa.  “We’re now between Mauretania and Southern Algeria, bound for Fezzan, the Libyan Desert, and Nubia on the Red Sea.  That is a clear reach of more than three thousand miles of solid desert.”

“Oh, we’re all right, as long as we stay in the desert,” Bohannan affirmed.  “But they’ll be watching for us, all right, when we try to leave.  It’s all British territory to the east of us, from Alexandria down to Cape Town.  If we could only make our crossing of the Nile and the Red Sea, at night—?”

“Impossible, Major.  That’s where we’ve got to restock petrol.  If it comes to a show-down, crippled as we are, we’ll fight!  Of course, I realize that, fast as we fly, the wireless flies faster.  We may have to rely on our neutralizers again—­”

“They’re working?”

“Imperfectly, yes.  They’ll still help us, in ‘civilized warfare.’  And as for what will happen at Mecca, if the Faithful are indiscreet enough to offer any resistance—­”

“Got something new, have you?”

“I think it may prove something of a novelty, Major.  Time will tell, if Allah wills.  Yes, I think we may have a little surprise for our friends, the Meccans.”

The two fell silent again, watching the desert panorama roll back and away, beneath them.  Afar, two or three little oases showed feathery-tufted palms standing up like delicate carvings against the remote purple spaces or against the tawny, seamed desolation that burned as with raw colors of fires primeval.  Here, there, patches of stunted tamarisk bushes were visible.  A moving line of dust showed where a distant caravan was plodding eastward over the sparkling crystals of an ancient salt sea-bottom.  A drift of low-hanging wood-smoke, very far away, betrayed the presence of a camp of the Ahl Bayt, the People of the Black Tents.