Lombardo, who had fully atoned for his fault by having given his life in the service of the now depleted Legion, was buried in his service-uniform, in a fairly deep grave on which the Legionaries heaped a great tumulus of sand.
The only witnesses were the Arabian Desert stars; the only requiem the droning of the helicopters far above, where _Nissr_ hung with her gleaming lights like other, nearer stars in the dense black sky.
By ten o'clock, the air-liner had resumed her course, leaving still another brave man to his last sleep, alone.

The routine of travel settled down again on the ship and its crew of adventurers.
At half-past eleven, the Master issued from his cabin.

All alone, and speaking with no man, he took a quarter-hour constitutional up and down the narrow gallery along the side of the fuselage--the gallery on which his cabin window opened.

His face, by the vague light of the glows in this gallery, looked pale and worn; but a certain gleam of triumph and proud joy was visible in his dark eyes.
All about him, stretched night unbroken.

Far behind, lay vast confusions involving hundreds of millions of human beings violently wrenched from their accustomed routines of faith and prayer, with potential effects beyond all calculation.