Flying Legion

by George Allan England

  CHAPTER XXIV

  ANGELS OF DEATH

  In utter silence, moving only a foot at a time, the trio ofman-hunters advanced. They spaced themselves out, dragged themselvesforward one at a time, took advantage of every slightest depression,every wrinkle in the sandy desert-floor, every mummy-like acacia andwithered tamarisk-bush, some sparse growth of which began to minglewith the halfa-grass as they passed from the coast-dunes to the desertitself.

  Breathing only through open mouths, for greater stillness, taking careto crackle no twig nor even slide loose sand, they labored on, underthe pale-hazed starlight. Their goal was vague. Just where theyshould come upon the Beni Harb, in that confused jumble of dunes and_nullahs_ (ravines) they could not tell; nor yet did they know theexact distance separating the Legion's trenches from the enemy. Allwas vague mystery--a mystery ready at any second, at any slightestalarm, to blaze out death upon them.

  None the less, stout-hearted and firm of purpose, they serpented theirpainful way prone on the hot, dusty bosom of the Sahara. Fate for themand for all the Legion, lay on so slight a thing as the stirring ofa twig, the _tunk_ of a boot against a bleached camel's skull, thepossibility of a sneeze or cough.

  Even the chance scaring-up of a hyena or a vagrant jackal might betraythem. Every breath, every heartbeat was pregnant with contingencies oflife and death.

  Groveling, they slipped forward, dim, moving shadows in a world ofbrown obscurity. At any moment, one might lay a hand on a sleepingpuff-adder or a scorpion. But even that had been fore-reckoned. Allthree of them had thought of such contingencies and weighed them.Not one but had determined to suppress any possible outcry, if thusstricken, and to die in absolute silence.

  What mattered death for one, if two should win to the close rangenecessary for discharging the lethal capsules? What mattered it evenfor two, if one should succeed? The survivors, or the sole survivor,would simply take the weapons from the stricken and proceed.

  After what seemed more than an hour, though in fact it was but the tenminutes agreed on with Bohannan, off behind them toward the coast asudden staccato popping of revolvers began to puncture the night. Upand down the Legionaries' trench it pattered, desultory, aimless.

  The three men engaged in the perilous task of what the Arabs call_asar_, or enemy-tracking, lay prone, with bullets keening highoverhead. As the Master looked back, he could see the little spurts offire from that fusillade.

  The firing came from more to the left than the Master had reckoned,showing him that he had got a little off his bearings. But now he tookhis course again, as he had intended to do from the Legion's fire; andpresently rifle work from the Arabs, too, verified, his direction.

  The Master smiled. Leclair fingered the butt of his revolver.

  Rrisa whispered curses:

  "Ah, dog-sons, may you suffer the extreme cold of El Zamharir! Ah, may_Rih al Asfar_, the yellow wind (cholera), carry you all away!"

  The racket of aimless firing continued a few minutes, underneath themild effulgence of the stars. It ceased, from the Legion's trenches atthe agreed moment; and soon it died down, also from the Arabs'. Quietrose again from the desert, broken only by the surf-wash on thesand, the far, tremulous wail of a jackal, the little dry skitter ofscorpions.

  The three scouts lay quiet for ten minutes after the volleying hadceased. Silence settled over the plain; but, presently, a low moaningsound came indistinctly from the east. It lasted only a moment, thendied away; and almost at once, the slight wind that had been blowingfrom the sea hushed itself to a strange calm.

  Rrisa gave anxious ear. His face grew tense, but he held his peace.Neither of the white men paid any heed to the slight phenomenon. Tothem it meant nothing. For all their experience with the desert, theyhad never happened to hear just that thing. The Arab, however, felt astab of profound anxiety. His lips moved in a silent prayer to Allah.

  Once more the Master raised his hand in signal of advance. The threeman-stalkers wormed forward again. They now had their direction,also their distance, with extreme precision; a simple process oftriangulation, in which the glow of the beach-fire had its share, gavethem the necessary data.

  Undaunted, they approached the camp of the Beni Harb; though everymoment they expected to be challenged, to hear the crack of analarm-rifle or a cry to Allah, followed by a deadly blast of slugs.

  But fortune's scale-pan dipped in their direction, and all held still.The sun-baked desert kept their secret. Onward they crawled, now oversand, now over cracked mud-flakes of saline deposit where water haddried at the bottom of a _ghadir_. All was calm as if the spirit ofrest were hovering over the hot, fevered earth, still quivering fromthe kiss of its great enemy, the sun.

  "Peace, it is peace until the rising of the morn!" a thought came tothe Master's mind, a line from the chapter Al Kadr, in the Koran. Hesmiled to himself. "False peace," he reflected. "The calm before thestorm!" Prophetic thought, though not as he intended it!

  On and on the trio labored, soundlessly. At last the chief stopped,held up his hand a second, lay still. The others glimpsed him by thestarlight, nested down in a shallow depression of the sand. They creptclose to him.

  "Lieutenant," he whispered, "you bombard the left-hand sector, towardthe fire and the sea. Rrisa, take the right-hand one. The middle isfor me. Fire at will!"

  Out from belts and pockets came the lethal pistols. Withwell-estimated elevation, the attackers sighted, each covering hisown sector. Hissing with hardly audible sighs, the weapons fired theirstange pellets, and once again as over the woods on the EnglewoodPalisades--really less than twenty-four hours ago, though it seemeda month--the little greenish vapor-wisps floated down, down, sinkinggently on the Sahara air.

  This attack, they knew, must be decisive or all would be hopeless. Thelast supply of capsules was now being exhausted. Everything had beenstaked on one supreme effort. Quickly the attackers discharged theirweapons; then, having done all that could be done, lay prone andwaited.

  Once again that hollow moaning sound drifted in across the bakedexpanse of the Sahara--a strange, empty sound, unreal and ominous.Then came a stir of sultry breeze, from the east. It strengthened;and a fine, crepitant sliding of sand-particles became audible. Rrisastirred uneasily.

  "Master," he whispered, "we should not delay. If the _jinnee_ of thewaste overtake us, we may be lost."

  "The _jinnee_ of the waste?" the Master answered, in a low tone. "Whatnonsense is this?"

  "The simoom, Master--the storm of sand. We call it the work of evilspirits!"

  The Master made no reply, save to command silence.

  For a time nothing happened in the Arabs' camp. Then came a littlestir, off there in the gloom. A sound of voices grew audible. The nameof Allah drifted out of the all-enveloping night, to them, and that ofhis Prophet. A cry: "_Ya Abd el Kadir_--" calling on a patron saint,died before the last word, "_Jilani_," could find utterance. Thensilence, complete and leaden, fell with uncanny suddenness.

  The Master laughed, dryly. He touched Leclair's arm.

  "Strong medicine for the Beni Harb, Lieutenant," said he. "Their own_imams_ (priests) have strong medicine, too, but not so strong as thatof the cursed sons of Feringistan. Sleep already lies heavy on theeyelids of these sons of Allah. And a deeper sleep shall soon overcomethem. Tell me, Lieutenant, can you kill men wholesale?"

  "Yes, my Captain."

  "Sleeping men, who cannot resist you? Can you kill themscientifically, in masses, without anger?"

  "How do you know now, my Captain, that it will not be in anger?"And the Frenchman half eased himself up on hands and knees, peeringforward into the night. "After what these Beni Harb--or their closekin--have done to me and to poor Lebon--listen! What was that?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "That far, roaring noise?"

  "It is nothing! A little wind, maybe; but it is nothing, nothing!Come, I am ready for the work!"

  The Master stood up. Rrisa followed suit. No longer crawling, butwalking erect, they advance
d. They still used caution, careful to makeno noise; but confidence had entered into them. Were not the Arabs allasleep?

  The white men's faces were pale and drawn, with grim determination forthe task that lay ahead--the task of converting the Beni Harb's campinto a shambles. The Arab's face, with white-rimmed eyes and withlips drawn back from teeth, had become that of a wild animal. Rrisa'snostrils were dilated, to scent out the enemy. He was breathing hard,as if he had run a mile.

  "They are near, now, _Ya M'alme!_" said he. "They are close at hand,these _nakhawilah_! (pariahs). Allah, the high, the great, hathdelivered them into our hands. Verily there is no power or might butAllah. Shall I scout ahead, Master, and spy out the camp?"

  "No, Rrisa. I send no man where I will not gladly go myself. All threeof us, forward!"

  Again they advanced, watchful, revolvers in hands, ready for anysudden ambush. All at once, as they came up over a breastwork of hardclay and gravel that heaved itself into rolling sands, the camp of theBeni Harb became visible. Dim, brown and white figures were lying allabout, distorted in strange attitudes, on the sand beyond the ridge.There lay the despoilers of the Haram, the robber-tribe of Sheik Abdel Rahman, helpless in blank unconsciousness.

  The Master laughed bitterly, as he strode forward into the camp, thelong lines of which stretched vaguely away toward the coast where thefire was still leaping up against the stars, now paled with a strangehaze.

  Starlight showed weapons lying all about--long rifles and primitiveflint-locks; _kanat_ spears of Indian male-bamboo tipped with steeland decorated with tufts of black ostrich-feathers; and _jambiyehs_,or crooked daggers, with wicked points and edges.

  "Save your fire, men," said the Master picking up a spear. "Thereare plenty of means, here, to give these dogs the last sleep, withoutwasting good ammunition. Choose the weapon you can handle best, andfall to work!"

  With a curse on the heretic Beni Harb, and a murmur of thanks to Allahfor this wondrous hour, Rrisa caught up a short javelin, of the kindcalled _mirzak_. The lieutenant chose a wide-bladed sword.

  "Remember only one thing, my brothers in arms!" exclaimed the Master."But that is most vital!" He spoke in Arabic.

  "And what may it be?" asked the Frenchman, in the same tongue.

  "I do not know whether old Sheik Abd el Rahman is with this party ornot, but if either of you find him, kill him not! Deliver him to me!"

  "Listen, Master!" exclaimed Rrisa, and thrust the point of his javelindeep into the sand.

  "Well, what now, Rrisa?"

  "Shall we, after all, kill these sleeping swine-brothers?"

  "Eh, what? Thy heart then, hath turned to water? Thou canst not kill?They attacked us--this is justice!"

  "And if they live, they will surely wipe us out!" put in theFrenchman, staring in the gloom. "What meaneth this old woman'sbabble, son of the Prophet?"

  "It is not that my heart hath turned to water, nor have the fountainsof mine eyes been opened to pity," answered Rrisa. "But some thingsare worse than death, to all of Arab blood. To be despoiled of armsor of horses, without a fight, makes an Arab as the worm of the earth.Then he becometh an outcast, indeed! 'If you would rule, disarm'," hequoted the old proverb, and added another: "'Man unarmed in the desertis like a bird shorn of wings.'"

  "What is thy plain meaning in all this?" demanded the chief.

  "Listen, _M'alme_. If you would be the Sheik of Sheiks, carry awayall these weapons, and let these swine awaken without them. They woulddrag their way back to the oases and the black tents, with a storythe like of which hath never been told in the Empty Abodes. The Saharawould do homage, Master, even as if the Prophet had returned!"

  "_Lah_! I am not thinking of the Sahara. The goal lies far beyond--farto eastward."

  "Still, the folk are Arabs there, too. They would hear of this, andbow to you, my _M'alme_!"

  "Perhaps. Perhaps not. I can take no chances, Rrisa. The land, hereand to the eastward, might all arise against us. The tribes might comeagainst us like the _rakham_, the carrion-vultures. No, we must killand kill, so that no man remaineth here--none save old Abd el Rahman,if Allah deliver him into our hands!"

  "That is your firm command, Master?"

  "My firm command!"

  "To hear the Master is to obey. But first, grant me time for my_isha_, my evening prayer!"

  "It is granted. And, Rrisa, _there_ is the _kiblah_, the direction ofMecca!"

  The Master pointed exactly east. Rrisa faced that way, knelt,prostrated himself. He made ablution with sand, as Mohammed allowswhen water cannot be found. Even as he poured it down his face, thestrangely gusting wind flicked it away in little whirls.