This strange man’s face was now wholly other than it had been only a week before, drawn and lined by ennui.  Now vast ambitions dominated and infused it with virile force.

As he held the speeding air-liner to her predetermined course through voids of night and mystery, he peered with burning eagerness at the beckoning stars along the world’s far, eastern rim.

“Behold now, Allah!” he cried suddenly. “Labbayk![1] I come!”

[Footnote 1:  Labbayk (I am here) is the cry of all Mohammedan pilgrims as they approach the holy city of Mecca.]

CHAPTER X

“I AM THE MASTER’S!”

The arrival of Simonds, with the spare window-pane, and of Brodeur—­one of the boldest flyers out of Saloniki in the last months of the war—­broke in upon the Master’s reveries.  Only a few minutes were required to mend the window.  During this time, the Master explained some unusual features of control to the Frenchman, then let him take charge of Nissr.

“She’s wonderful,” said he, as Brodeur settled himself at the wheel.  “With her almost unlimited power, her impeccable controls and her automatic stabilizers, I hardly see what could happen to her.”

“Fire, of course, m’sieur,” the ace replied, “always has to be guarded against.”

“Hardly on an all-metal liner.  Now, here you see—­and here—­”

He finished his explanations, and, satisfied that all was safe, passed into his own cabin.  Rrisa, he found, had already unpacked his kit, and had arranged it to perfection.  Even a copper bowl of khat, the “flower of paradise,” was awaiting him.

The Master sat down, chewed a few leaves and indulged in a little time of what the Arabs call kayf, or complete relaxation and inner contemplation—­a restful trick he had learned many years ago on the coast of Yemen.  The ticking of the aluminum-cased chronometer, now marking a little past 2 a.m., soothed him, as did the droning hum of the propellers, the piping whistle of the ship-made hurricane round the fuselage, the cradling swing and rock of the air-liner hurling herself almost due east.

After some quarter-hour of absolute rest, he rang for his Arab orderly.  Rrisa appeared at once.  Already he had got himself into his military uniform, the one he had worn at Gallipoli when the Master had saved his life.  As he stood there in the doorway, he swung his left foot out and back, with clicking heels, and made a smart salute.

“What does M’alme desire?” asked he, in Arabic.

“I desire to know thy opinion of all this, Rrisa.  Tell me, did thy great prophet, M’hamed, ever ride in such state through the air?  Was Al Burak, his magic horse, on which he traveled to the paradise of the houris, more swift or mighty than this steed of mine?”

The Master speaking Arabic, weighted every word with its full meaning.