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.
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