“We ought to be sighting some of the attackers, before long,” judged he.  “I’m rather curious to see them—­to see flies attacking an eagle.  I haven’t had a real chance of testing out the neutralizers.  Their operation, in actual practice, ought to be interesting.”

He tried to speak coldly, impersonally; but he well realized a certain strained quality in his voice.  Even now, in the hour of impending attack, his thoughts could not remain wholly fixed on the enemy which—­so the wireless informed him—­lay only a little beyond the haze-enshrouded, burning rim of cloudland.

Despite every effort of the will, he kept mentally reverting to the midships port stateroom containing the woman.  He could not keep himself from wondering how she was getting on.  Her wound, he hoped—­he felt confident—­could not be serious.

Had it been, of course, the woman would have asked some further aid.  And since the moment when he had left her, no word had come to him.  More than once, temptation had whispered:  “Go to her!  She has deceived you, and you are master here.  But, above all, you are a man!”

Twice he had all but yielded to this inner voice.  But he had not yielded.  Another and a sterner voice had said:  “She is an interloper.  She has no rights.  Why give her another thought?”

This voice had prevailed.  The Master had told himself only a few hours more remained, at all events, before the woman should be cast off and abandoned in whatever strange land might befall—­probably Morocco, or it might be the Spanish colony of Rio de Oro on the western fringes of the Sahara.  After that, what responsibility for her safety or her welfare would be his?  Why, he had none, even now!

“But, man,” the small voice insinuated, “she came to you on an errand of mercy, to nurse and care for such as might fall ill or be wounded.  It was not wholly the desire for adventure that led her to deceive you.  Her motive was high and fine!”

“A curse on all women!” retorted the other voice.  “Away with her!” And this sterner voice again prevailed.  Still, at thought that sometime during the day now close at hand he was to see the last of this woman who had stood there before him in his cabin, with dark eyes looking into his, with eager, oval face upturned to his, with all that glory of lustrous hair a flood about her shoulders, something unknown, unwonted, fingered at the latchets of his heart.

He realized that he felt strange, uneasy, uprooted from his sober aplomb.  Unknown irritations possessed him.  Under his breath he muttered an Arabic cynicism about woman, from the fourth chapter of the Koran:  “Men shall have the preeminence above women, because Allah hath caused the one of them to excel the other!”

Then came the philosophical reflection: 

“Man, you were seeking new sensations, new experiences, to stir your pulses.  This woman has given you many.  She has served her purpose.  Now let her go!”