What this might be,
none could guess. None save the Master. More agitated than any had
ever seen him, he stood there at the rail, lips tight, hands clutching
the binoculars at his eyes.
"By Allah!" the major heard him mutter. "It can't be true--the thing
I've heard. Only a fable, surely! And yet--"
Now the vast plain was coming clearly to view. It appeared fully
under cultivation with patches of greenery that denoted gardens,
palm-groves, fruit-orchards; all signs of a well-watered region here
at the center of the world's most appalling desert.
This in itself was a thing of astonishment. But it faded to
insignificance as all at once a far, dazzling sheen burst on the
watchers. Up against the sky a wondrous, yellow blaze seemed to be
burning. Enormously far away as it still was, it filled the heart
of every observer with a strange, quick thrill of wonder, of hope.
Something of wild exultation seemed to leap through the Legionaries'
veins, at sight of that strange fire.
Leclair glanced at the Master. The dark, taciturn man, for all his
self-control, had set teeth into his lip till the blood was all but
starting.
On, on swooped _Nissr.
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