The Master pointed at this, with a strange smile.
"Once we pass that sea," he commented, "our goal is close. The hour of
great things is almost at hand!"
"Provided we get some petrol," put in Bohannan.
"Faith, an open gate, that should have been closed, defeated Napoleon.
A few hundred gallons of gasoline--"
"The gasoline is already in sight, Major," smiled the chief, his
glasses on the coastline. "That caravan--see there?--comes very
apropos."
The Legion bore down with a rush on the caravan--a small one, not
above fifty camels, but well laden. The cameleers left off crying
"_Ooosh! Ooosh!_" and beating their spitting beasts with their
_mas'hab_-sticks, and incontinently took to their heels. Rrisa viewed
them with scorn, as he went down in the nacelle with a dozen of the
crew.
The work of stripping the caravan immediately commenced. In an hour
some five hundred tin cases of petrol had been hoisted aboard. On
the last trip down, the Master sent a packet wrapped in white cloth,
containing a fair money payment for the merchandise. British goods, he
very wisely calculated, could not be commandeered without recompense
The packet was lashed to a camel-goad which was driven into the sand,
and _Nissr_ once more got slowly under way.
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