The only witnesses were the Arabian Desert stars; the only requiem
the droning of the helicopters far above, where _Nissr_ hung with her
gleaming lights like other, nearer stars in the dense black sky.
By ten o'clock, the air-liner had resumed her course, leaving still
another brave man to his last sleep, alone. The routine of travel
settled down again on the ship and its crew of adventurers.
At half-past eleven, the Master issued from his cabin. All alone, and
speaking with no man, he took a quarter-hour constitutional up and
down the narrow gallery along the side of the fuselage--the gallery
on which his cabin window opened. His face, by the vague light of the
glows in this gallery, looked pale and worn; but a certain gleam of
triumph and proud joy was visible in his dark eyes.
All about him, stretched night unbroken. Far behind, lay vast
confusions involving hundreds of millions of human beings violently
wrenched from their accustomed routines of faith and prayer, with
potential effects beyond all calculation. Ahead lay--what?
"It may be glory and power, wealth past reckoning, incredible
splendor," thought the Master, "and it may be ignominy, torture,
death.
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