The Beni Harb were obviously determined to hold back any possibility of a charge, or any return to the protection of the giant flying-ship.  Bullets whimpered overhead, spudded into the sand, or pinged against metal on the liner.  Parthian fighters though these Beni Harb were, they surely were well stocked with munitions and they meant stern business.

“And stern business is what they shall have, once the dark is complete,” the Master pondered.  “It is annihilation for them or for us.  There can be no compromise, nor any terms but slaughter!”

One circumstance was favorable—­the falling of the wind.  Had it risen, kicking up a harsher surf, Nissr must have begun to break.  But as the cupped hand of night, closing over the earth, had also shut away the wind, the air-liner was now resting more easily.  Surf still foamed about her floats and lower gallery—­surf all spangled with the phosphorescence that the Arabs call “jewels of the deep”—­but unless some sudden squall should fling itself against the coast, every probability favored the liner taking no further damage.

In silence, save for the occasional easing of positions along the trench, the Legionaries waited.  Strange dim colors appeared along the desert horizons, half visible in the gloom—­funeral palls of dim purple, with pale, ghostly reflections almost to mid-heaven.

Some of the men had tobacco and matches that had escaped being wet; and cigarettes were rolled, passed along, lighted behind protections that would mask the match-gleam from the enemy.  The comforting aroma of smoke drifted out on the desert heat.  As for the Master, from time to time he slipped a khat leaf into his mouth, and remained gravely pondering.

At length his voice sounded along the trench.

“Men of the Flying Legion,” said he, “this situation is grave.  We can’t escape on foot, north or south.  We are without provisions or water.  The nearest white settlement is Rio de Oro, about a hundred miles to southward; and even if we could reach that, harassed by the Beni Harb, we might all be executed there, as pirates.  We must go forward or die right here on this beach.

“In any kind of a straight fight, we are hopelessly out-classed.  There are about three hundred men against twenty-four of us, some of whom are wounded.  Even if we took life for life, the Bedouins would lose less than ten percent, and we’d be wiped out.  And we couldn’t expect to take life for life, charging a position like theirs in the night.  It can’t be a stand-up battle.  It’s got to be science against savagery, or nothing.”

A murmur of approval trickled along the sands.  Confidence was returning.  The Legionaries’ hearts tautened again with faith in this strange, this usually silent and emotionless man whose very name was unknown to almost all of them.

“Just one other word,” the Master continued, his voice calm, unshaken, quite impersonal.  “If science fails, do not allow yourselves to be captured.  The tortures of Hell await any white man taken by these fanatics.  Remember, always keep one mercy-bullet—­for yourselves!”