This almost brought the huge liner to a stop. At any rate, she now made more leeway than headway, for the only remaining engines which could now be used were those in the foremost gondola and port centre cabin. "Stop!" signalled the captain to the remaining engineers in charge of those engines. And the next instant the huge, looming mass, with her engines silent, lay there helpless, levering away to windward, shorn of her pride, and with the wreckage hanging loose from her rear and central gondolas. Another surprise that now awaited the crew and passengers of the air-liner was to see the phantom raider careering wildly around the beaten giant at enormous speed, in almost perfect silence, though his two propellers raced wildly as he dipped, spun and rolled to celebrate his victory, and to show off his amazing powers to the victims. "Good heavens!" ejaculated the captain as he watched all this. "It was only too true, then, what we heard at Delhi." "You mean about the silent engines and the speed of three hundred miles an hour," added the navigating officer, who now stood by the skipper. "Yes. It’s some amazing conspiracy. I cannot help admiring the rascals, though I should like to hang the pair of them." "Hullo! here he comes again. I wonder what he wants this time," and the next instant the raider throttled down, and came close up to the gondola, shouting as he did so in perfectly good English:-- "Start that port engine, please, and bring her to earth by that cluster of palm-trees over there." "What more do you want with us?" replied the captain. "I must see your passports, and examine your cargo for contraband." "Eh, what’s that?" exclaimed the amazed commander. "What does he want to examine our passports for?" "We haven’t any," remarked the navigating officer. "And why the deuce is he to search for contraband, I should like to know?" groaned the skipper. "Did you hear what I said?" called the raider, who now appeared to be getting angry at the delay. "Yes," growled the other. "Then bring her down at once, and let out that mooring cable!" And as there was no apparent help for it, and not a single patrol had yet hove in sight, the captain of the liner reluctantly complied, wasting as much time as he dared in the operation. *CHAPTER XI* *THE AIR-KING’S TRIBUTE* Far down below, the Arab sheik and his party, ambushed amid the waving palms of the oasis, had watched with keen and eager eyes this thrilling encounter in the heavens between the phantom-bird and the great leviathan. To them it seemed impossible that the aeroplane, sometimes diminished by distance to a tiny speck, could overcome the mighty airship.