tly bowed with the weight of Lebon and of the belaboring
storm.

"_Oooo-eeee! Oooooeeee! Oooooo-eeee!_" the Master hailed, three long
times. An answering shout came back, faintly, from the black. The
Master bent, assured himself the old Sheik's mouth and nose were still
covered by the hood of the burnous, and cried: "Forward!" And the
three men stumbled on and on.

Five minutes later the Master once more paused.

"Remember, both of you," he cautioned, "not one word of the find!"

"The Great Pearl Star?" asked Leclair gruntingly.

Their voices were almost inaudible to each other in that mad tumult.
"That is to be a secret, my Captain?"

"Between us three; yes. Let that be understood!"

"I pledge my honor to it!" cried the Frenchman. Rrisa added: "The
Master has but to command, and it is done!" Then once more they plowed
on down the shore.

Only a few minutes more brought them, with surprising suddenness, to
the end of the Legionaries' trench. Trench it no longer was, however.
All the paltry digging had been swiftly filled in by the sand-devils;
and now the men were lying under the lee of the dunes, protecting
themselves as best they could with the tunics of their uniforms over
their heads.

They got up and came stumbling in confusion to greet the returning
trio. Peering in the dark, straining their eyes to see, they listened
to a few succinct words of the Master:

"Perfect success! Lethalizing was complete. Sand has buried the entire
tribe. Leclair found his former orderly, who had been their slave.
We have here their Sheik, Abd el Rahman. Nothing more to fear. Down,
everybody--tunics over heads again--let the storm blow itself out!"

The Legion lay for more than an hour, motionless, waiting in the
night. During this hour both Lebon and the old Sheik recovered
consciousness, but only in a vague manner. There was no attempt to
tell them anything, to make any plans, to start any activities. In a
Sahara simoom, men are content just to live.

CHAPTER XXVII

TOIL AND PURSUIT

Before midnight the storm died with a suddenness even greater than
that of its onset. Like a tangible flock of evil birds or of the
spirits Victor Hugo has painted in _Les Djinns_, the sand-storm blew
itself out to sea and vanished. The black sky opened its eyes of
starlight, once again; gradually calm descended on the desert, and by
an hour after midnight the steady east wind had begun to blow again.

The "wolf's tail," or fi