The "wolf's tail," or first gray streak of dawn along the horizon,
found the Legion all astir. Lebon had long since been told of his
rescue; he and his lieutenant had embraced and had given each other a
long story--the enslaved man's story making Leclair's face white with
rage, his heart a furnace of vengeance on all Islam.
The Sheik, dimly understanding that these devils of Feringistan had by
their super-magic overwhelmed him and his tribe with sleep-magic
and storm-magic of the strongest, lay bound hand and foot, sullenly
brooding. No one could get a word from Abd el Rahman; not even Rrisa,
who exhausted a wonderful vocabulary of imprecation on him, until the
Master sternly bade him hold his peace.
A gaunt, sunken-eyed old hawk of the desert he lay there in the sand,
unblinkingly defiant. Tortures and death, he felt, were to be his
portion; but with the stoicism of the barbarian he made no sound.
What his thoughts were, realizing the loss of tribesmen, capture,
despoilment of the Great Pearl Star, who could tell?
A wondrous dawn, all mingled of scarlet, orange, and vivid yellows,
with streaks of absinthe hue, burned up over the desert world.
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