A Tripolitan fisherman, Mohammed Ben Ali el Bad, a holy man nearly
seventy years of age, who had twice made the journey to Mecca and who
now in his declining years occupied himself with reading the Koran and
instructing his grandsons in the profession of fishing for mullet along
the reefs of the Gulf of Cabes, had anchored for the night off the
Tunisian coast, about midway between Sfax and Lesser Syrtis. The mullet
had been running thick and he was well satisfied, for by the next
evening he would surely complete his load and be able to return home to
the house of his daughter, Fatima, the wife of Abbas, the confectioner.
Her youngest son, Abdullah, a lithe lad of seventeen, was at that moment
engaged in folding their prayer rugs, which had been spread in the bow
of the falukah in order that they might have a clearer view as they
knelt toward the Holy City. Chud, their slave, was cleaning mullet in
the waist and chanting some weird song of his native land.
Mohammed Ben Ali el Bad was sitting cross-legged in the stern, smoking a
hookah and watching the full moon sail slowly up above the Atlas Range
to the southwest. The wind had died down and the sea was calm, heaving
slowly with great orange-purple swells resembling watered silk. In the
west still lingered the fast-fading afterglow, above which the stars
glimmered faintly. Along the coast lights twinkled in scattered coves.
Half a mile astern the Italian cruiser _Fiala_ lay slowly swinging at
anchor. From the forecastle came the smell of fried mullet. Mohammed Ben
Ali was at peace with himself and with the world, including even the
irritating Chud. The west darkened and the stars burned more
brilliantly. With the hookah gurgling softly at his feet, Mohammed
leaned back his head and gazed in silent appreciation at the wonders of
the heavens. There was Turka Kabar, the crocodile; and Menish el Tabir,
the sleeping beauty; and Rook Hamana, the leopard, and there--up there
to the far north--was a shooting star. How gracefully it shot across the
sky, leaving its wake of yellow light behind it! It was the season for
shooting stars, he recollected. In an instant it would be gone--like a
man's life! Saddened, he looked down at his hookah. When he should look
up again--if in only an instant--the star would be gone. Presently he
did look up again. But the star was still there, coming his way!
He rubbed his old eyes, keen as they were from habituation to the
blinding light of the desert. Yes, the star was coming--coming fast.
"Abdullah!" he called in his high-pitched voice. "Chud! Come, see the
star!"
Together they watched it sweep onward.
"By Allah! That is no star!" suddenly cried Abdullah. "It is an
air-flying fire chariot! I can see it with my eyes--black, and spouting
flames from behind."
"Black," echoed Chud gutturally. "Black and round! Oh, Allah!" He fell
on his knees and knocked his head against the deck.
The star, or whatever it was, swung in a wide circle toward the coast,
and Mohammed and Abdullah now saw that what they had taken to be a trail
of fire behind was in fact a broad beam of yellow light that pointed
diagonally earthward. It swept nearer and nearer, illuminating the whole
sky and casting a shimmering reflection upon the waves.
A shrill whistle trilled across the water, accompanied by the sound of
footsteps running along the decks of the cruiser. Lights flashed.
Muffled orders were shouted.
"By the beard of the Prophet!" cried Mohammed Ali. "Something is going
to happen!"
The small black object from which the incandescent beam descended passed
at that moment athwart the face of the moon, and Abdullah saw that it
was round and flat like a ring. The ray of light came from a point
directly above it, passing through its aperture downward to the sea.
"Boom!" The fishing-boat shook to the thunder of the _Fiala's_
eight-inch gun, and a blinding spurt of flame leaped from the cruiser's
bows. With a whining shriek a shell rose toward the moon. There was a
quick flash followed by a dull concussion. The shell had not reached a
tenth of the distance to the flying machine.
And then everything happened at once. Mohammed described afterward to a
gaping multitude of dirty villagers, while he sat enthroned upon his
daughter's threshold, how the star-ship had sailed across the face of
the moon and come to a standstill above the mountains, with its beam of
yellow light pointing directly downward so that the coast could be seen
bright as day from Sfax to Cabes. He saw, he said, genii climbing up and
down on the beam. Be that as it may, he swears upon the Beard of the
Prophet that a second ray of light--of a lavender colour, like the eye
of a long-dead mullet--flashed down alongside the yellow beam. Instantly
the earth blew up like a cannon--up into the air, a thousand miles up.
It was as light as noonday. Deafened by titanic concussions he fell half
dead. The sea boiled and gave off thick clouds of steam through which
flashed dazzling discharges of lightning accompanied by a thundering,
grinding sound like a million mills. The ocean heaved spasmodically and
the air shook with a rending, ripping noise, as if Nature were bent upon
destroying her own handiwork. The glare was so dazzling that sight was
impossible. The falukah was tossed this way and that, as if caught in a
simoon, and he was rolled hither and yon in the company of Chud,
Abdullah, and the headless mullet.
This earsplitting racket continued, he says, without interruption for
two days. Abdullah says it was several hours; the official report of the
_Fiala_ gives it as six minutes. And then it began to rain in torrents
until he was almost drowned. A great wind arose and lashed the ocean,
and a whirlpool seized the falukah and whirled it round and round.
Darkness descended upon the earth, and in the general mess Mohammed hit
his head a terrific blow against the mast. He was sure it was but a
matter of seconds before they would be dashed to pieces by the waves.
The falukah spun like a marine top with a swift sideways motion.
Something was dragging them along, sucking them in. The _Fiala_ went
careening by, her fighting masts hanging in shreds. The air was full of
falling rocks, trees, splinters, and thick clouds of dust that turned
the water yellow in the lightning flashes. The mast went crashing over
and a lemon tree descended to take its place. Great streams of lava
poured down out of the air, and masses of opaque matter plunged into the
sea all about the falukah. Scalding mud, stones, hail, fell upon the
deck.
And still the fishing-boat, gyrating like a leaf, remained afloat with
its crew of half-crazed Arabs. Suffocated, stunned, scalded, petrified
with fear, they lay among the mullet while the falukah raced along in
its wild dance with death. Mohammed recalls seeing what he thought to be
a great cliff rush by close beside them. The falukah plunged over a
waterfall and was almost submerged, was caught again in a maelstrom, and
went twirling on in the blackness. They all were deathly sick, but were
too terrified to move.
And then the nearer roaring ceased. The air was less congested. They
were still showered with sand, clods of earth, twigs, and pebbles, it is
true, but the genii had stopped hurling mountains at each other. The
darkness became less opaque, the water smoother. Soon they could see the
moon through the clouds of settling dust, and gradually they could
discern the stars. The falukah was rocking gently upon a broad expanse
of muddy ocean, surrounded by a yellow scum broken here and there by a
floating tree. The _Fiala_ had vanished. No light shone upon the face of
the waters. But death had not overtaken them. Overcome by exhaustion and
terror Mohammed lay among the mullet, his legs entangled in the lemon
tree. Did he dream it? He cannot tell. But as he lost consciousness he
thinks he saw a star shooting toward the north.
When he awoke the falukah lay motionless upon a boundless ochre sea.
They were beyond sight of land. Out of a sky slightly dim the sun burned
pitilessly down, sending warmth into their bodies and courage to their
hearts. All about them upon the water floated the evidences of the
cataclysm of the preceding night--trees, shrubs, dead birds, and the
distorted corpse of a camel. Kneeling without their prayer rugs among
the mullet they raised their voices in praise of Allah and his Prophet.