Day drew on toward the shank of the afternoon. The sun, rayless, round, blue-white, lagged away toward the west, seeming to sway in high heaven as Nissr took her long dips with the grace and swiftness of a flying falcon. Some time later the cloud-masses thinned and broke away, leaving the world of waters spread below in terrible immensity.
As the African coast drew near, its arid influences banished vapor. Now, clear to the up-curving edge of the world, nothing could be seen below save the steel-gray, shining plains of water. Waves seemed not to exist. All looked smooth and polished as a mirror of bright metal.
At last, something like dim veils of whiteness began to draw and shimmer on the eastern skyline—the vague glare of the sun-crisped Sahara flinging its furnace ardor to the sky. To catch first sight of land, the Master and Bohannan climbed the ladder again, to the take-off, and thence made their way into the starboard observation gallery. There they brought glasses to bear. Though nothing definite could yet be seen through the shrouding dazzle that swaddled the world's rim, this fore-hint of land confirmed their reckonings of latitude and longitude.
"We can't be more than a hundred and fifty miles west of the Canaries," judged the major. "Sure, we can eat supper tonight in an oasis, if we're so minded—with Ouled Naïls and houris to hand round the palm-wine and—"
"You forget, my dear fellow," the Master interrupted, "that the first man who goes carousing with wine or women, dies before a firing-squad. That's not the kind of show we're running!"
"Ah, sure, I did forget!" admitted the Celt. "Well, well, a look at a camel and a palm tree could do no harm. And it won't be long, at this rate, before—"
A sudden, violent concussion, far aft, sent a quivering shudder through the whole fabric of the giant liner. Came a swift burst of flame; black, greasy smoke gushed from the stern, trailing on the high, cold air. Long fire-tongues, banners of incandescence, flailed away, roaring into space.
Shouts burst, muffled, from below. A bell jangled madly. The crackle of pistol-fire punched dully through the rushing swiftness.
With a curse the major whirled. Frowning, the Master turned and peered. Nissr, staggering, tilted her beak sharply oceanward. At a sick angle, she slid, reeling, toward the burnished, watery floor that seemed surging up to meet her.
A hoarse shout from the far end of the take-off drew the Master's eyes thither. With strange agility, almost apelike in its prehensile power, a human figure came clambering up over the outer works, clutching at stays, wires, struts.