Death lurked not alone in sea and in the rifles of the inhabitants of
this harsh land, but even in the crawling things underfoot.
The Master paid no heed to shriveled grass, to skull, or scorpion.
All his thoughts were bent on the overcoming of that band of Islamic
outcasts now persistently pot-shotting away at the strange flying
men from unknown lands "that faced not Mecca nor kept Ramadan"--men
already hidden in swiftly scooped depressions, from which the sand
still kept flying up.
"Steady, men!" the Master called. "Get your wind! Ready with the
lethal guns! Each gun, one capsule. Then we'll charge them! And--no
quarter!"
Again, silence from the Legion. The fire from the dunes slackened.
These tactics seemed to have disconcerted the Beni Harb. They had
expected a wild, only half-organized rush up the sands, easily to be
wiped out by a volley or two from the terribly accurate, long-barreled
rifles. But this restraint, this business-like entrenching reminded
them only too forcibly of encounters with other men of the
Franks--the white-clad Spanish infantry from Rio de Oro, the dreaded
_piou-pious_, zouaves, and _Legion Etrangere_ of the French.
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