Hot was the sand, and dry. Withered camel-grass grew in dejected tufts here, there, interspersed with a few straggles of half a. A jackal's skull, bleached, lay close to the Master's right hand. Its polish attested the care of others of its kind, of hyenas, and of vultures. Just so would a human skull appear, in no long time, if left to nature's tender ministrations. Out of an eyehole of the skull a dusty gray scorpion half crawled, then retreated, tail over back, venomous, deadly. Death lurked not alone in sea and in the rifles of the inhabitants of this harsh land, but even in the crawling things underfoot. The Master paid no heed to shriveled grass, to skull, or scorpion. All his thoughts were bent on the overcoming of that band of Islamic outcasts now persistently pot-shotting away at the strange flying men from unknown lands "that faced not Mecca nor kept Ramadan"--men already hidden in swiftly scooped depressions, from which the sand still kept flying up. "Steady, men!" the Master called. "Get your wind! Ready with the lethal guns! Each gun, one capsule. Then we'll charge them! And--no quarter!" Again, silence from the Legion. The fire from the dunes slackened. These tactics seemed to have disconcerted the Beni Harb. They had expected a wild, only half-organized rush up the sands, easily to be wiped out by a volley or two from the terribly accurate, long-barreled rifles. But this restraint, this business-like entrenching reminded them only too forcibly of encounters with other men of the Franks--the white-clad Spanish infantry from Rio de Oro, the dreaded _piou-pious_, zouaves, and _Légion Etrangère_ of the French. Firing ceased, from the Beni Harb. Silence settled on both sides. From the sea, the noise of waves breaking along the lower works of _Nissr_ mingled with the hiss and refluent slither of the tumbling surf on the gleaming beach. For a while peace seemed to have descended. A purple shade settled over the desert. The sun was nearly gone, now, and dusk would not be long in closing its chalice down over the light-wearied world. Leclair, entrenched beside the Master, whispered: "They do not understand, these dog-brothers--may Allah make their faces cold!" He grinned, frankly, with sparkling eyes and white teeth. "Already we have their beards in our hands!" The Master's only answer was to draw from his pocket an extra lethal gun, hand it over and, in a whisper, hastily instruct the Frenchman how to use it. Then he cried, loudly: "Ready, men! Fire!" All along the line, the faint, sighing hiss of the strange weapons sounded. Over the top of the dune little, almost inaudible explosions began taking place as--_plop! plop! plop!_--the capsules burst. Not now could their pale virescence be seen; but the Master smiled again, at realization that already the lethal gas was settling down upon the horde of Shiah outcasts.