“Not a bit of it. We don’t want him—not for long, at least. I’ve got an idea. But we must get hold of him first.”
Bringing the airship about in a wide circle, Tom steered it back along the track in search of the Jew.
“The donkey!” cried Oliphant, as presently the man came in sight, making desperate efforts to gain the village. “He might have hidden himself among the rocks or the trees, and given us no end of trouble.”
“I don’t know. He has chosen probably the lesser of two evils. He’d have a bad time of it if he were found alone by any wandering Moors; his best chance was certainly to try to get to the village and tell the sheikh all he knows.”
The Jew could be seen every now and again glancing anxiously back along the track. When he caught side of the airship returning, and realized that he was bound to be overtaken, he pulled up his mule, tumbled off the saddle, and dived into the cover of some rocks, hoping no doubt that they would afford him concealment.
“Too late!” said Tom with a chuckle. “He might escape us if we were on his level, but he forgets we can look right down upon him.”
“It’s like a field-mouse trying to escape from a hawk,” said Oliphant.
“Rather worse, for a field-mouse has its colour to help it, while Salathiel’s blue coat makes him a little too conspicuous.”
For a few moments the Jew, indeed, disappeared from view; but Tom steered the airship exactly above the spot where he was last seen, and there was Salathiel crouching in a cleft much too narrow for him.
There was no convenient landing-place among the rocks where the airship could be brought safely to rest, and the Jew, apparently recognizing this, did not attempt to stir from his position. But the vessel came to rest in the air, hovering like a monstrous humming-bird above the trembling man, no more than twenty feet from the ground.