The major, peering down through the trap, swore luridly. Leclair muttered something to himself, with wrinkled brow. "Captain Alden's" eyes blinked strangely, through the holes of the mask. The others stared in frank astonishment.
"What the devil, sir—?" began the major; but the chief held up his hand for silence. Again he spoke whisperingly into the strange apparatus. This time a murmur rose to him; a murmur increasing to a confused tumult, that in an angry wave of malediction beat up about Nissr as she hung there with spinning helicopters, over the city.
The Master smiled as he put up the receiver in the little box and closed the door with a snap. Regretfully he shook his head.
"These Arabic gentlemen, et ál," he remarked, "don't seem agreeably disposed to treat with us on a basis of exchanging the Sheik Abd el Rahman for what we want from them. My few remarks in Arabic, via this etheric megaphone, seem to have met a rebuff. Every man in the Haram, the minarets, the arcade, and the radiating streets heard every word I said, gentlemen, as plainly as if I had spoken directly into his ear. Yet no sound at all developed here."
"The principle is parallel to that of an artillery shell that only bursts when it strikes, and might be extremely useful in warfare, if properly developed—as I haven't had time, yet, to develop it. No matter about that, though. My proposal has been rejected. Peace having been declined, we have no alternative but to use other, means. There is positively no way of coming to an agreement with our Moslem friends, below."
As if to corroborate his statement, a rifle-bullet whistled through the open trap and flattened itself against the metal underbody of the fuselage, over their heads. It fell almost at "Captain Alden's" feet. She picked it up and pocketed it.
"My first bit of Arabia," said she. "Worth keeping."
The firing, below, had now become more general than ever. Shrill cries rose to Allah for the destruction of these infidel flying dogs. The Master paid no more heed to them than to the buzzing of so many bees.
"I think, Major," said he, "we shall have to use one of the two kappa-ray bombs on these Arabic gentry. It's rather too bad we haven't more of them, and that the capsules are all gone."
"Pardon me, my Captain," put in Leclair, "but the paralysis-vibrations, eh? As you did to me, why not to them?"