"Remember, both of you," he cautioned, "not one word of the find!"
"The Great Pearl Star?" asked Leclair gruntingly.
Their voices were almost inaudible to each other in that mad tumult.
"That is to be a secret, my Captain?"
"Between us three; yes. Let that be understood!"
"I pledge my honor to it!" cried the Frenchman. Rrisa added: "The Master has but to command, and it is done!" Then once more they plowed on down the shore.
Only a few minutes more brought them, with surprising suddenness, to the end of the Legionaries' trench. Trench it no longer was, however. All the paltry digging had been swiftly filled in by the sand-devils; and now the men were lying under the lee of the dunes, protecting themselves as best they could with the tunics of their uniforms over their heads.
They got up and came stumbling in confusion to greet the returning trio. Peering in the dark, straining their eyes to see, they listened to a few succinct words of the Master:
"Perfect success! Lethalizing was complete. Sand has buried the entire tribe. Leclair found his former orderly, who had been their slave. We have here their Sheik, Abd el Rahman. Nothing more to fear. Down, everybody—tunics over heads again—let the storm blow itself out!"
The Legion lay for more than an hour, motionless, waiting in the night. During this hour both Lebon and the old Sheik recovered consciousness, but only in a vague manner. There was no attempt to tell them anything, to make any plans, to start any activities. In a Sahara simoom, men are content just to live.