“Listen, Lieutenant!  Events are at a crisis, now.  I will speak very plainly.  You know the Arabs, good and bad.  You know Islam, and all that the Mohammedan world is.  You know there are more than 230,000,000 people of this faith, scattered from Canton to Sierra Leone, and from Cape Town to Tobolsk, all over Turkey, Africa, and Arabia—­an enormous, fanatic, fighting race!  Probably, if trained, the finest fighting-men in the world, for they fear neither pain nor’ death.  They welcome both, if their hearts are enlisted!”

“Yes, yes, I know!  Their Hell yawns for cowards; their Paradise opens to receive the brave!  Death is as a bride to the Moslem!”

“Fanatics all, Lieutenant!  Only a few white men have ever reached Mecca and returned.  Bartema, Wild, and Joseph Pitt succeeded, and so did Hurgronje, Courtelmont, Burton, and Burckhardt—­though, the Arabs admit only the two last.

“But how many hundreds have been beheaded or crucified?  No pilgrimage ever takes place without a few such victims.  A race of this type is a potential world-power of incalculable magnitude.  Men who will die for Islam and for their master without a quiver—­”

“My Captain!  What do you mean?”

The lieutenant’s eyes had begun to fill with flame.  His hand tightened to a fist.

“Mon Dieu, what do you mean?  Can it be possible you dream of ruling the races of Islam?”

Something whined overhead, from the beach now only about a quarter-mile distant.  Then a shot from behind the dunes cracked out across the crumbling, hissing surf.

“Ah,” laughed Leclair, “the ball has opened, eh?  Well this is now no time for talk, for empty words.  I think I understand you, my Captain; and to the death I stand at your right hand!”

Their palms met and clasped, a moment, in the firm grip of a compact between two strong men, unafraid.  Then each drew his pistol, crouching there at the windows of the pilot-house.

“Hear how that bullet sang?” questioned the Frenchman.  “It was notched—­a notched slug, you understand.  That is a familiar trick with these dog-people of the Beni Harb.  Sometimes, if they have poison, they dip the notched slug in that too.  And, ah, what a wound one makes!  Dum-dums are a joke beside such!”

Another shot sounded.  Many cracked out along the dune.  All up and down the crest of the tawny sand-hills, red under the sun now close to the horizon, the fusillade ran and rippled.  On Nissr, metal plates rang with the impact of the slugs, or glass crashed.  The gigantic Eagle of the Sky, helpless, received this riddling volley as she sagged ashore, now almost in the grip of the famished surf.

“Yes, the ball is opening!” repeated Leclair, with an eager laugh.  His finger itched on the trigger of his weapon; but no target was visible.  Why waste ammunition on empty sand-dunes?

“Let it open!” returned the chief.  “We’ll not refuse battle, no, by Allah!  Our first encounter with Islam shall not be a surrender!  Even if we could survive that, it would be fatal to this vast plan of mine—­of ours, Lieutenant.  No, we will stand and fight—­even till ‘certainty,’ if Allah wills it so!”