Under the Master's direction, stout mooring-piles of driftwood were sunk into the dunes, block-and-tackle gear was improvised, and lines were rove to the airship. She was lightened by shoveling several tons of sand from her and by removing everything easily detachable; the men working in baths of sweat, with a kind of ardent abandon.
Enough power was still left in her storage-batteries to operate the air-pressure system through the floats. This air, with a huge boiling and seething of the white surf, loosened the floats from the cling of the sand; and a score of men at the tackles succeeded at high-tide in hauling Nissr far up on the beach.
Rough gear, broken ship, toiling men blind with sweat, blazing African sun, appalling isolation, vultures and jackals at work behind the dunes, and—back of all—ocean and Sahara, made a picture fit for any master-painter. We must throw only one glance at it, and pass on.
This much accomplished, nightfall, with the west glowing like a stupendous jewel, brought rest. They camped in the wady, with machine-guns mounted and sentinels out. Abd el Rahman, liberated from his bonds and under strict surveillance, still refused to talk. No information could be got from him; but Rrisa's eyes brightened with unholy joy at sight of the old man ceremonially tearing his burnous and sifting sand on his gray head.
"Allah smite thy face, ya kalb!" (O dog!) he murmured. "Robber of the Haram, from Jehannum is thy body!"[1]
[Footnote 1: Alluding to the Arab superstition that every man's body is drawn from the place where it will eventually be buried. Rrisa's remark, therefore, was an Oriental way of wishing the Sheik back into Hell.]
Night passed with no alarm, quietly save for the yelping and quarreling of the jackals and hyenas at work beyond the dunes. Early morning found the Legionaries again at work; and so for five days they toiled. The Legion was composed of picked men, skilled in science and deep in technical wisdom. With what tools still remained from the time when all surplus weight had been jettisoned, and with some improvised apparatus, they set vigorously to work repairing the engines, fitting new rudder-plates, patching up the floats and providing the burned propellers with metal blades.
Metal enough they had at hand, by cutting out dispensable partitions from the interior. And beavers never worked as these men worked in spite of the fierce smitings of the tropic sun. Even the wounded men helped, holding or passing tools. The Master labored with the rest, grimy, sweating, hard-jawed; and "Captain Alden" did her bit without a moment's slackening. Save for Abd el Rahman, now securely locked without any means of self-destruction in a stateroom, no man idled.
Anxiety dogged their every moment. Sudden storm might yet hopelessly break up the stranded air-liner. Other tribes might have seen the signal-fire and might descend upon the Legionaries. Arab slavers might discover them, beating along the coast in well-armed dhows. Twice, in five days, latteen-sailed craft passed south, and one of these put in to investigate; but a tray of blanks from a machine-gun, at half a mile, turned the invader's blunt nose seaward again.
The greatest peril of all was that some news of the wreck might reach Rio de Oro and be wirelessed to civilization. That would inevitably mean ruin. Either it would bring an air-squadron swooping down, or battle-ships would arrive.