"Don't hurry the sun," Freddy murmured, and stretched out. "I'm perfectly comfortable right here. It can take as long as it likes. But it's a bit of a mess, isn't it, Dave? We sure let the Victory down."
"Yeah," Dave grunted, and felt his eyelids growing strangely heavy. "We sure turned out to be just a couple of foul balls. But we're not licked yet. We've got our strength, something to eat, and some water. Maybe when it gets a bit—gets a bit—a bit cooler—"
[CHAPTER NINE]
Wings From Tripoli
A faint buzzing sound penetrating Dave's ears pried his eyelids open. For a second or two he stared bewildered at Freddy Farmer's motionless body a couple of feet from him, at the shelf of rock upon which he found himself, and out across a short rocky valley to a wall of jagged rock studded with sun-scorched brush on the other side. Then, like a door in his brain being opened, memory rushed back. Sure, of course! He had dropped off to sleep in spite of his jitters from the deadly scorpion episode. And a funny buzzing sound had awakened him.
He remained perfectly still for another moment, his ears strained and listening intently to the buzzing sound. At the end of that moment he realized what it was. Not a bee, or a hornet, or anything like that. The sound came from the engine of an airplane high overhead. He got to his feet and walked over to the edge of the rock shelf where he could stare up into the sky. It was then he realized that he hadn't had any cat-nap. The sun was well down toward the western lip of the desert and the sky was slowly being painted with streaks of gold, and red, and purple blue. An impulsive glance at his watch showed that his little refresher nap had lasted a good six hours and some odd minutes.
Because of the altitude of the plane, and the countless ever changing streaks of color in the sky, it was some time before he could pick it out. When he did, there was no way of telling whether it was friend or foe up there. The plane was just a dot moving swiftly toward the west. One thing was certain. It wasn't a Nazi plane. He could tell that from the steady unthrobbing note of the engine. It was either Italian or British. The direction of the plane's flight, the fact that he could tell it was a small single-engined job, and the fact that night was not very far away, gave him the belief that it must be Italian. A moment later the engine's note died off a little, and he saw the dot start sliding downward.
"What's that, Dave? Company?"
Dave looked around at the sound of Freddy's voice. The English youth was digging groggy sleep out of his eyes and getting slowly to his feet. He came over to the edge of the rock shelf, shielded his eyes with his hands and squinted up into the sky.
"An Italian, or one of ours," he said after a moment's study. "I doubt it's one of ours, though. I say, look! The beggar is banking around and coming back this way. Good grief, do you suppose he's spotted us?"