And ever more and more pestiferously the
infernal torment of the flies increased.
Inflamed with chagrin, rage, and grief for the lost comrades, the
Legionaries lay in waiting. No conversation ran along the line.
Silence held them--and their own thoughts. Wounds had been dressed as
well as they might be. Nothing remained but to await the Master's next
command.
"Captain Alden's" suggestion that Kloof, still lying aboard in the
liner, should be seen to, met a rebuff from the Master. Living or
dead, one man could not now endanger the lives of any others. And that
danger still lay in any exposure was proved by the intermittent firing
from the Arab lines.
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.
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